Connections
"Always the innocents are the first victims – so it has been for ages past, and so it is now."
-- J.K. Rowling
Catherine pushed her way through the emergency doors to the nurse on duty.
"Excuse me, a CSI came in here a couple of hours ago, Sara Sidle…"
"Ah yes. Miss Sidle is safe and we have her stabilized," the nurse said, pulling out a clipboard and reading off of it.
"Is she in the OR a recovery room…"
"She's in her own room at the moment Miss…?"
"Willows, Catherine Willows."
"Would you like to see her?" The relief on Catherine's face was evident and so the nurse led her down a series of hallways.
"Here we are Miss Willows. She may be asleep." Catherine nodded and pushed open the door to the room. Sara opened her eyes startled when she noticed it wasn't a nurse or doctor, but co-worker.
"Catherine?" She cleared her throat. "What are you doing here?"
"You're collapse was on the news. Is everything alright?"
"Doctors say I've got something in my bloodstream. They're doing tests right now," Sara replied, a small tired grin appearing. "So it was all over the news?"
"When a CSI collapses on a scene, its big news," Catherine replied. "We're supposedly unshakable." Grissom strolled in just then and conversation ceased.
"My God. Catherine you're safe," he muttered under his breath, or meant to because Sara and Catherine caught every word. Sara just grinned and Catherine blushed. His eyes then turned to Sara.
"Are you alright?" Sara nodded.
"Doctors still don't know what made me collapse."
"You weren't drinking or anything beforehand?" Both women shot him a glare. He put his hands up in surrender.
"I'm a scientist. I look at all angles." The door opened and a doctor walked in.
"Miss Sidle…" he paused noticing the other occupants in the room. "Are you…?"
"Family," Catherine said quickly. Grissom shot her a strange look but Sara nodded her head. They were as much to her anyway. The doctor nodded.
"There was a trace of morphine in your blood. Any idea how it got there?" The room was silent, every one surprised at the news.
"Morphine?" Sara asked in shock.
"I'll take that as a no. Not enough to kill you… but I suspect there is a chance that if 911 hadn't been called so fast you'd be dead. It was almost as if it were leaking into your bloodstream. We were able to get it out of your system pretty quickly." The room was deathly silent as the three processed the news. Catherine was the first to gain her speaking ability.
"Thank you, doctor," she said. "If you don't mind, we'd like some time alone with her." The doctor nodded and left.
"A CSI was attacked… I was attacked," Sara whispered more to herself than the room's other occupants. Grissom preferred pacing at the end of Sara's bed.
"Whoever it was must believe you're dead." Both heads turned to look at Catherine. She rolled her eyes.
"Think about it. We're all out on cases and Sara drops. Then the doctor tells us it was as if it was leaking into her system. If it was leaking into her system, whoever put it there in the first place must believe they'd done their job. The only other thing I don't understand is why morphine? It would take some good planning to get that into her system, especially since she was on the field."
"But it wasn't enough, and I don't take pain killers unless I absolutely have to. It still doesn't make sense," Sara said. Catherine shook her head.
"Its just a theory." She glanced down at her watch and sighed. "Sorry, I have to go pick up Lindsey." She stood.
"I'll come with you. Sara needs her rest anyway." Grissom said quickly. Catherine looked at him quizzically but let him lead the way out. When they were out of Sara's room in the deserted hall, Grissom stopped, turned and pulled Catherine to him in a bone-crushing embrace. Catherine jerked, eyes widening as she collided with his chest.
"God, Cath, don't you ever do that again! I didn't know where you'd gone, when I turned around you weren't there." She could feel him shaking – though, she thought, probably from his scare not from Sara lying in a hospital bed – and she was shaking too.
"I had a lot on my mind. Sara's my friend and she collapsed," she said pulling away and continuing down the hall. Grissom watched for a few more minutes as she turned the corner and headed back into Sara's room, defeated at the way she had shrugged off his worry.
Catherine put her sunglasses on, the early morning sunlight bright on her eyes. She quickly glanced back to see if Grissom was following and was relieved to see he wasn't. She slowed her pace to get into her car and started up the vehicle. Why had he been so scared when she left? It wasn't like she had to tell him everywhere she went.
Then again, with Sara collapsing like that, I guess he was scared I was going to do the same thing. But even that didn't do to convince her that everything was okay in the mind of Gil Grissom. It just didn't make sense to her. True, they had been friends for years but why, all of a sudden was he worried. He trusted her on her own but… it really didn't make sense. She pushed her thoughts and theories to the back of her mind and focused on getting her daughter.
Sara knew something was wrong when Grissom walked back into her room. She looked at him, puzzled.
"You and Catherine have a fight?" Grissom shook his head. "You will tell her soon though right?" Grissom looked up at her, startled. Sara rolled her eyes.
"They tension between you is so thick you'd have to cut it with a chainsaw because a knife would break," she said.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Come on, Grissom! You're the one with a PhD! Think about it!" When he continued to be silent, Sara closed her eyes in a move to calm down her frustration.
"You guys like each other! Just ask her out already," she said forcefully. Grissom looked at her.
"I do not have six heads and I'm serious. Everyone at the lab, okay maybe not Nick, can feel the tension between the two of you when you're in the same room, especially when you're in close proximity." Grissom was trying with his whole brain to come up with something to go against that, but no argument would come.
"Do the whole lab a favour and just ask her to dinner. Maybe that will get rid of some of the tension and the rest of us can work in peace!"
"Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" Lindsey exclaimed when Catherine walked through the door of her sister's house.
"Hey sweetie. Ready for some breakfast before school?" Lindsey nodded eagerly and rushed to gather up her toys and overnight bag. When she came back, Catherine said thank you and took Lindsey to the car.
"Mommy? Can Uncle Gil come with us? He hasn't been out to breakfast with us for a long time," Lindsey asked with all of the innocence a child her age could possess. Catherine thought about it for a minute.
"I'm afraid not, sweetie but how be I call him when I get home. Maybe we can all go out to dinner instead?" Catherine had a feeling she was digging herself deeper into a hole she had begun many years ago when she had fallen in love with the man, but it made Lindsey so happy.
"Thank you Mommy!" Lindsey exclaimed from the back seat. Catherine couldn't help but smile at her daughter.
Catherine returned to the lab as soon as she had dropped Lindsey off at school. There were a few things she wanted to take a look at. As soon as she walked through the door, Greg came bounding up to her.
"Great you're here! Grissom's in working on the fingerprint you found but I found DNA." Catherine shot him a sideways glance.
"Semen?"
"On the sheets. Not sure if it's the killer but if we can figure out who was with her that night…"
"But I thought she died of natural causes," Catherine said unintentionally interrupting Greg.
"You mean no one told you that morphine was found in Ellen's system? Doc told me not too long ago."
"Morphine?" Catherine was on the alert now. It was the same drug suspiciously found in Sara's blood.
"It was, I swear. Why?"
"It was the same drug found in Sara's system." Greg stopped dead. "They've got to be linked some how. Who was the DNA from?" She turned to look for Greg. He was standing a few steps behind her in shock.
"Hello? Earth to Greg?"
"Sara had morphine in her system?"
"Says she doesn't take it unless she absolutely has to. I believe her." Greg nodded. "But who was the DNA from?"
"A man named Scott Paolini."
"Any idea how he might have met up with Ellen? He's already booked for rape but maybe we can get him on a murder charge too."
"You know, Sara and Warrick's case seemed the same as Ellen's? Rape then death, from OD-ing too."
"Catherine! We have a match for your fingerprint," Grissom called from behind, sticking his head out of the door. Catherine turned to Greg.
"Be prepared to finish this conversation later," she said before making her way to Grissom.
"What's the verdict?"
"Jack Banning. Now, before you go flipping your lid…" Catherine glared. Grissom ignored it. "I took the liberty of looking up a few records on Mr. Banning before I told you. Greg told me his lab results earlier so I already knew the two didn't match. He's a pharmaceutical chemist, specializing in pain killers."
"So you think he's directly related to the morphine in Ellen's system. Now the question is, since Sara didn't put morphine in her system, is he connected to that too?" Catherine theorized, her disappointment from not getting a match turning into new theories. Grissom nodded.
"Okay, I'll go ask Sara if she knows Jack Banning and you can go find where he lives… I don't know, get a search warrant or something." Their eyes met blue on blue and neither seemed to be able to look away. Catherine's nerves were tingling from his gaze.
"Hey Grissom." Nick's voice interrupted and both jumped, moving away from each other.
"You don't know when Sara will be back, do you?" Grissom looked up. His gaze had found something interesting in the floor when Nick had walked in.
"No. Why?"
"She should see this stuff." Catherine spun to look at Nick, a smile gracing her features.
"And why, may I ask, should she see that?" she asked, indicating the papers in his hand.
"Why do you want to know?"
"Because we're working on the same case."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I know, not a nice spot to leave you, but my Christmas break is here and I have two weeks to work on the third chapter.
Right now this is all about the case but, you'll see later, that there will be tons of twists and turns in it! I have a lot planned for Grissom and Catherine!
Next chapter:
Theories are formed
Sara reveals her link to a suspect to Catherine
Grissom and Catherine fight over a request from Catherine on behalf of Sara
An arrest is made
~Kavi Leighanna