Nick and Sara were puzzling over their case in the break room. Both had been working for a long time, and were very tired. Sara was trying to apparently drown herself in a bucket of black coffee, and Nick was hitting himself round the head with a book in, Sara assumed, an attempt to keep himself awake.

She'd see his eyelids droop.then-BANG!

Sara, unable to contain herself due to a mixture of stress, exhaustion, and of course the fact that what Nick was doing was somewhat less than normal behaviour, and she burst out laughing.

'What,' Nick asked, looking offended.

'It's.nothing.don't worry,' Sara gasped, wiping the tears of laughter from her cheeks. Man, she really needed some sleep; she was almost hysterical!

'Ah.oooh dear.I'm sorry Nick, it's just.'

'Yeah, I know, but I'm real tired, and this case just doesn't make any sense to me. I'm going to see Greg about that blue fluff and the fibres we found.'

With that he got up and strolled down the hallway to the DNA lab.

'Hey man, you find anything unusual in the fibres at all?' he asked Greg, coming up behind him. Greg hadn't noticed him come in, and suddenly hearing Nick's voice made him jump.

'Jeez, don't do that!' he laughed, then, taking a deep breath said,

'How can I help you?'

Nick noticed the younger man looked very tired, more so than he felt. He wondered the last time Greg actually went home. He certainly hadn't been the same recently, but he wasn't going to ask him about it. He wouldn't have got the chance anyway as Greg quickly started talking again.

'This case of yours is odd. Sara told me the desert wasn't the scene of the crime, and I might just have something that will help you out. Well, it's not really evidence, just a theory. You see, the blue fluff, though I couldn't actually get anything useful from it, no prints or chemical markers or anything, I managed to see how it might have fitted in with your crime. It's looks to me like sleeping bag lining. You know, those thermal insulated ones, all warm and fluffy-just like you feel when you see me in the mornings huh? Well anyway, I sorta figured he might've been wrapped in that. Though why someone would have a thermal sleeping bag in the desert. I don't know. Well good luck, I hope I may have given you something. Oh yeah, and also the brown fibres you gave me are just standard yarn. Couldn't get anything else of them.'

'Thanks Greg.' Nick said distantly, trying to process all the information he'd just been bombarded with. He'd also noticed, that while Greg was being cheerful and jokey he had had a kind of sad look in his eyes. He didn't like it. Not one bit.

Back in the break room, Nick was going over his new findings with Sara, and a strangely un-busy Warrick (hmmm.he'd have to have a word with Grissom about that one!)

'So, Greg reckoned it was a sleeping bag?' Warrick tried to clarify.

'Yeah. Which means we're looking for a pretty bloody sleeping bag.'

'But we have no idea where he was killed. The sand has ruined any tracks we might have had to lead us somewhere, and I've had guys scouring a one- mile radius. Nothing.'

'We just don't have enough information. Why were his hands untied? When? How long has he been in the desert? And the most important thing-who is he? I can't find any missing persons reports that match his description. There was no ID found on him. I don't want to sound too pessimistic too soon, but I think we're coming to the end of the line. Whoever killed him went to great lengths to make sure they left no trace of his identity behind, of anything behind.' Nick sighed.

'I'm guessing the killer knew him, a random killing wouldn't have been this well covered up. And the vic was pretty beaten up. Whoever did this wanted to make him suffer.' A shudder passed through Sara as she said this. She could never understand why someone would want to inflict pain on another person. Why they'd enjoy it. She could understand killings done in the heat of the moment, or someone being shot, where the deaths were relatively quick and painless, and for the most part unplanned or done in an altered state of mind. But cases like this. Slow painful deaths that someone had thought, dreamt about, and planned, then carried out in the most brutal and (she couldn't bear this) pleasurable way possible. Where the victims where like mice, hoping, pleading in vain as a cruel merciless cat toyed with them. Where they were helpless, waiting to die, but being forced to watch as their tormentor savoured their cries for help, their agonised screams for mercy. These were the dark thoughts that plagued Sara's dreams, haunted her thoughts like a swirling fog.

She blinked. She realised that for some time now Nick and Warrick had been trying to get her attention.

'Hey, um, sorry, just slipped into my own little world there.' She laughed meekly. Her mind was still forcing her to think of the last few hours of their victim's life, and the endless horrible possibilities that made up the mystery of how he met his death.

'Sara,' Nick shouted down the hallway a while later. 'Wait up!'

He ran to catch up with her.

'I meant to tell you earlier that I'm worried about Greg. He hasn't been himself lately. Did you ever.you know, talk to him about the accident. I mean, you know, you were there. Oh never mind. It's just I've noticed that he hasn't really been himself lately, and well, yeah.' he trailed off.

'Well I guess I haven't really. Maybe I should. I don't know, we've just never really talked about it. I don't think he's talked to anyone about it. I know I haven't. Grissom tried to get him to see someone, you know right after, because of the shaking and all. But Greg said he was OK. I guess he still feels kind of, well, unsafe.'

'That's what I'm talking about. He's jumpy, and I've seen him shaking. I think he tries to hide it, but I have seen him. I know he's having a hard time. It's stressful for all of us right now, but I just think he's going through a rough time.'

'Yeah.' Sara felt ashamed. Nick was so worried about his friend. HER friend. She hadn't really even noticed.

'But you've been so busy,' her mind told me.

'That's no excuse. Nick noticed.' Her conscience pointed out.

'Well you can talk to Grissom at the meeting. See if he's got any ideas.' She said, trying to shake of her guilt.

'Meeting?' Nick was puzzled.

'The meeting Gris called. The one.' Nick's pager beeped.

'.that Grissom's just paged you about.' She said smirking.

Nick laughed as they rounded the corner to the break room. He saw everyone in there except Greg.

'Uh-oh,' he thought. 'This can't be good.'