Title: Mine Now
Author: Ranlie
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: "Strip Strangler". I think that's it. Go me!
Disclaimer: If they were mine, I wouldn't live in an apartment the size of a large walnut. Seeing as I do live in an apartment the size of a large walnut, I guess they're not mine.
Summary: Sara becomes involved in the case of a serial killer, and runs into trouble when she gets in over her head.
Feedback: I welcome feedback of any kind, although flames will be met with a giggle and a smirk.
Author's Note: It's a tired trope, and for that I apologise. I've wanted to write a "someone gets kidnapped, eek!" story for a while, and just now felt like I could actually prepare one that isn't too annoying.
Chapter 1
He'd been furious with her. He had told her that he'd thought that she had learned by now, that the problems they dealt with every day could only be solved with patience.
Sara had learned, or so she kept telling herself. Really.
But day after day, death after death, patience could only bring her so far. They were up to three kidnappings, all so similar that it made her shiver. A woman would wave goodbye to her husband, children, or cat, and then never be heard from again. The only clue that the family would receive was a phone call, in the eerie tones of an audio masker:
"She's mine now."
The call was untraceable, of course. All they had been able to figure out was that it came from an older cellular phone, untraceable and impossible to position with a GPS. The families never even knew that she was gone until they received the call.
Vegas life continued as usual, of course. Morbid though it was, perhaps, three missing women was not an epidemic in the town that never slept. Even the FBI remained uninterested: half a dozen missing or a pair of dead bodies, Culpepper had said. Until then, it was in CSI's jurisdiction.
And so, when the fourth kidnapping was reported, the CSIs fell into roles that were beginning to become familiar. They would review the evidence (an unrecorded phone call, a car still in the garage, a bewildered family), realise that, as usual, the only thing that this women had in common with the others was her gender, and then, bereft of anything that could be followed up upon, the CSIs would scatter to the various other crimes that had a chance of being solved.
"He'll make a mistake," Grissom told them all. "We're just going to have to wait for it."
Nobody had said anything. It was true. How could you chase a shadow?
Mobely had disagreed. A long argument with Grissom in his office had proven that. Everyone knew enough to give the office a wide berth as the two fought, and as a result, when a fuming Grissom stormed out an hour later, no one knew what had happened. Rumour had it that Mobely was trying to move Greg to the day shift, but nobody gave that much credit: it was a well-established fact that Eckley couldn't stand him.
So when Sara had been called into the Sheriff's office, she had been surprised, to say the least. Especially when, on her way there, Grissom wouldn't even meet her gaze in the hall.
Soon she knew why.
"Patience hasn't worked so far. This is just something else to try! It can't hurt!"
"Don't you listen to a word I say?" Grissom asked, his frustration palpable. "Using a CSI as bait didn't work last time. I can't believe that you're letting Mobely push you into this!"
Foot traffic slowed in the hallway outside of Grissom's office. Watching Grissom and Sara argue was like watching a car crash in slow motion: there was nothing you could do about it, but you couldn't help but watch.
"And I can't believe that you are willingly passing up an opportunity to catch a serial killer!" Sara snapped, endeavoring to look unhurt and relaxed from her position against the doorframe of his office. "It may not help us, but it's not going to hurt, and he didn't push me into anything! If baiting him can help catch him, then I think it's a good idea!" She glanced over her shoulder, and saw Greg suddenly busy himself at the photocopier that sat just outside.
Grissom followed her gaze and eyed their audience. He let out one last disgusted sigh and strode from the room. Before he left, however, he leaned in towards her and said, for her ears only,
"If you want to go and get yourself killed, that's your business. Just don't expect me to come to your rescue this time."
Come to her rescue. Sure. Like he was her knight in shining armour. Sara stabbed at her cheesecake with a zeal that earned her a curious look from a passerby. It was just like him to completely miss the point!
The one connection between three of the four women was that they had gone to this café for lunch within a week of their disappearance. It wasn't much to work on, but it was better than nothing, according to Mobely, and she had to agree.
She struggled to focus on the operation again, but it was difficult. Five hours had passed, and, with the exception of an irate customer who had yelled at one of the baristas, nothing had happened. Sara glanced at the clock as she fingered her necklace nervously. It was nearly three fifteen, and she had been here since ten. The lunch rush was long over, and they hadn't even had a nibble. Three days of this had yielded nothing, and no one was becoming more frustrated than Sara herself.
She was just about to signal for the operation to wrap up for the day when something bumped into her shoulder. She was just about to turn around when she realised that her arm was burning. Sara leapt to her feet, gasping as the hot coffee sluiced down her arm and onto the floor. A teenage girl was standing beside her, mouth agape, holding a half-empty Styrofoam cup as if it were a murder weapon.
"I'm so sorry!" the girl breathed, reaching over for some napkins. Sara glanced to one side and saw a pair of undercover officers peek curiously over their newspapers. She waved them off, unnoticed by the girl, who was by this time dabbing at Sara's arm in a frantic attempt to make everything better.
"It's fine, really," Sara said, grabbing the girl's hands before she could prod at her sore arm any further. She did her best to smile at her, though it came out as more of a grimace. "Really, I was, uh, in the aisle. My bad."
Despite the teen's protestations, Sara dropped a ten on the table, picked up her purse and hurried back to her car: a little rented Echo that was parked a few blocks away. She drove the relatively short distance to the command truck, where the surveillance team was congregating. Mobely wasn't there himself, of course, but one of his lackeys was. He offered her a towel.
"Good work today," he said, smiling deprecatingly. "Did you see anything interesting?"
Sara shook her head. "Not really. There was that one guy, though, who started yelling because his coffee wasn't hot enough...he might be worth looking into..."
"This isn't the place," the aide said, his tone still friendly.
Sara blinked. "I'm sorry?"
"We've been here for three days: wasting time, resources, and manpower on a project that has thus far not yielded any results," he explained in the chipper tones of the unmolestable messenger. "The sheriff has ordered this operation to come to an end, and wants the parties involved to focus on other, more pressing concerns."
"But..." Sara felt as if her feet had been swept out from beneath her. "But, this is all we have to go on right now. There's no workable evidence in these cases: you've seen the case reviews. If we don't try to bring him out, then we'll just have another kidnapping on our hands in a week!"
The aide's smile never left his face. "You've done a good job in this operation, Miss Sidle, but while you sit there drinking tea and eating cheesecake, solveable cases are coming into the office, with one less person to work them." His expression softened a bit. "This assignment is over, Miss Sidle. It's time for you to go back to the lab. Sheriff's orders!" This last bit was said with a cheerful wink, before he turned back to the van.
Cheeks burning in embarassment, Sara regained her composure and returned to her car. She peeled out of the parking lot, anxious to get back to the lab and buried in work before word of her dismissal reached the leaves of the office grapevine.
She barely made it. Sara had just sat down at the light table to get to work on a broken mirror from another case when Greg came to a skidding halt at the entrance. He peered in at her.
"Hey."
She didn't look up. "Hey." Tweezers deposited a piece of glass into its correct position.
"So, I heard it didn't go so well," he persisted. "Didn't find anyone suspicious...."
"Greg..." Sara said, still not turning around.
"Yeah?" Greg asked, hopeful. He had twenty bucks riding on his being able to get information from Sara.
"It's none of your business," rumbled an irritated voice behind him.
Greg jumped, startled. He blinked up at Grissom, who glared down at him. "Don't you have somewhere to be?" Grissom asked.
"Uh, yeah. Right." Greg inched away from the doorway, and as soon as he was a few feet from Grissom, fled to the DNA lab. Grissom watched him go with a mixed look of irritation and amusement.
Sara had frozen when she had heard Grissom's voice, but when he turned back, she had gone back to her work. The only sound was the click of glass on glass, as she placed each piece where it belonged. She could feel Grissom's gaze boring into the back of her neck.
"So."
Another piece of glass dropped to the table. Sara didn't reply.
"It's a quiet night. You can do that tomorrow, if you want. Go home."
"I'm fine," Sara replied. She hoped that he couldn't see her cheeks burning.
"Look, I--"
Sara set out a frustrated sigh. The tweezers dropped to the table. "Listen. I screwed up. You know it. I know it. Let's forget it happened and get back to work, okay?"
A pause.
"Okay."
The pieces of glass winked at her from the bright table, but Sara couldn't focus on them. Moments ticked by in silence, until she couldn't take it any more. She whirled around in her chair. "Grissom..."
But he wasn't there. A passing intern gave her a peculiar look, and then continued on her way. Sara sighed, shook her head, and went back to work. She might as well get something useful done.
Chapter 2
Catherine had tried everything from drumming her fingers on the desk to clicking her pen, but nothing would get Grissom's attention. Nick and Warrick were content with skimming over the sports section of the Sun, but Catherine knew that their shift had started twenty minutes ago. It was time to get to work.
"Gil," Catherine said finally, "She's not coming. She's probably sick. I'm sure she'll call as soon as she gets up."
"Mm." Grissom cast one last glance at the door before turning to the others. "All right. We'll start without her. Nicky, Catherine, you've got a body in a dumpster outside the Tangiers. Warrick, you're with me at a residence in Clark county. Grab Greg: it's about time he saw a--"
"Mr. Grissom?" An intern stood in the doorway, looking embarrassed at having interrupted their meeting. "There's a call for you."
Grissom blinked. "I'm sorry?"
The intern looked confused. "A call, sir. On the phone. At the front desk?"
Grissom's brow furrowed. "Have them put it through to my cel," he told her. Still feeling awkward, the intern nodded vigorously and headed back to the public area of the lab. The other CSIs exchanged curious glances.
The phone bleated once before Grissom pressed the Talk button. "Gil Grissom."
"Are you Sara Sidle's supervisor?" asked a voice. It sounded fake; as if it were altered. An unsettled feeling formed in Grissom's stomach.
He frowned. "Who is this?"
"She's mine now."
A click, and the line went dead. Grissom slowly removed the phone from his ear and stared at it, as if it would explain itself.
Catherine glanced at the others and, seeing their equal confusion, took the lead. "Gil? Gil? Who was that?"
Grissom looked up at Catherine, his expression unreadable. When he spoke, his voice was hollow. "He's got Sara."
Her head hurt. A great, throbbing pain that resonated through her skull until it felt like her head would burst. She tried to move, but beyond a small shuffle, she couldn't.
"I'm sorry about that, Sara," someone said. She felt something on her shoulder: a hand? It was so dark, and God, her head hurt...
"See, the first one, she fought," the voice continued, and the hand--it was a hand, she could tell--on her shoulder stroked her gently, as if he were trying to comfort her. "And she hurt me, so now nobody's allowed to fight anymore. Okay?"
The words didn't make sense, and she couldn't focus enough to understand them. It was too hard to
"It's ours, for now," Grissom said upon his return from Mobely's office. His expression was closed, unreadable. "The other cases aren't going anywhere, but Sara is. This is our only case."
"Griss...we never found any evidence at any of the others," said Nick. Warrick and Catherine turned to glare at him, but he continued doggedly, "I'm just saying. Shouldn't we call in the FBI? Just to get some more people on the ground?"
"We don't need the FBI trampling all over our evidence," Grissom replied with a shake of his head. "Sara will have left us something. It's going to stay in-house until we find what that something is. Understand?"
Nick hesitated for a moment before nodding. Catherine and Warrick nodded as well.
"Good." Grissom looked down at the papers scattered on the desk before him. Dead bodies, everywhere. Found in gutters, dumpsters, fields, chopped up into--
"Gil?" Catherine's voice cut through his reverie. Grissom blinked, and shook his head.
"Right. Catherine, you're with me. We'll start at Sara's place. Warrick, Nick. Do what you can with the phone records. Review the old ones, while you're at it. And don't tell me--" he added, with a warning look at Warrick, who was about to protest," --that you've already gone over them. Do it again. Do it until you find something."
Habit drove them more than thought. Soon enough, Catherine was pulling her Tahoe into the parking lot of Sara's apartment building. They took the stairs, keeping an eye out for anything out of place--though, Grissom thought, it's not like he would know what was "out of place" when he hadn't even been there before.
He was surprised when Catherine produced her key ring at Sara's door and began to thumb through the keys. Catherine could feel his arched eyebrow-look.
"I feed her cat when she's pulling triple shifts," she explained, finally finding the silver key she was looking for.
"Sara has a cat?" Grissom asked, surprised once again. How did everyone else know so much about Sara?
Catherine gave him a sardonic look before opening the door. Surely enough, a small black cat was waiting for them, and Catherine had to bend over and scoop it up before it slipped out the door. The cat meowed in irritation before making a wriggling escape and fleeing into the bedroom.
"You never told me she had a cat," Grissom said, his tone accusatory.
Catherine arched an eyebrow at him. "I'm not the one who should have told you."
Grissom paused, then cleared his throat. A slight flush rose to his cheeks. "Uh, right. Let's get started, then."
"...it was like you were waiting for me."
She'd passed out again. The swim up towards consciousness was getting easier. Each time, it took less time to figure out where she was. This time, she only panicked for a few seconds before she realised that the reason she couldn't see was not because of blindness, but because something was covering her eyes.
"You were the only one who wanted to be with me, y'know that, Sara?" said a voice, breaking her concentration. "I mean, the others, they had to be convinced, but you, you knew. You knew that I was here to take care of you." He paused to sigh contentedly. "That's why this one's going to work out. You're smarter than the others."
"What happened..." Sara mumbled, reaching up to clear her vision. Two hands caught both of hers in a light but firm grip. She froze.
"Don't be scared," whispered a voice. He transferred her wrists into one hand, and used the other to smooth the hair on her brow. She twisted her head in an attempt to get away from his touch, but he followed her, hushing her all the while.
"It's okay, you're with me now. We're safe here.
"No one's gonna find us now."
"Nothing." Catherine dropped her kit in a corner, looking disgusted. Warrick and Nick looked up.
"Nothing?" they asked in chorus.
"Nothing," she growled. "He doesn't take them from their home, that's for sure. And Sara's Tahoe's still in the parking lot. Maybe she was taken on her morning run."
"Did the other women have morning runs?" Warrick asked.
Nick nodded. "Didn't think much of it before. Seems like most of the pretty women in Las Vegas run nowadays." Catherine and Warrick smirked at Nick, who pointedly went back to his video monitor.
Just then, Grissom walked in. He glowered at Nick and Warrick. "You found something," he said, making it sound more like an order than a question.
"Uh..." Warrick fidgeted, but before he could think of a response that wouldn't get his head bitten off, Nick interrupted them.
"I knew it!" Nick said, pounding his fist on the desk. He leaned back so that the others could see the monitor on which he was working. They all leaned forward to look at the screen. It was video of Sara's stakeout.
"She's drinking coffee," Warrick offered.
"No, no," Nick said. He pointed at a man dressed in dark clothes, nearly out of the camera's field of view. "See, when we went over everything else, I thought that maybe, when Sara was at the café, she wasn't looking widely enough. She was looking for someone to approach her, or to make a scene, or something like that.
"But nobody noticed him," he said, motioning towards the man again. The man appeared to be an employee of a commercial building. A janitor, even: he was sweeping the sidewalk with a large push broom. "I didn't think much of him 'til I saw another one of the building's janitors. There." He pointed at another person, a woman, dressed in a pale blue uniform, who was emptying the trash cans in front of the building.
"Different uniform," Catherine said. "But how do you know that that's not normal?"
Nick put the video on fast forward. People zipped about the screen, going from one place to another. The only two stationary figures were Sara, who moved only to bring her tea to her lips, and the dark figure, who continued to sweep the same spot, over and over again.
"Get Archie," Grissom said, his tone hard and cold. "I want to know who that guy is. Now."
Once they had a suspect, the team settled into its more familiar routine. It was far easier to chase a specific suspect than it was to hunt shadows in fog, as they had been doing for weeks. Archie's work had been the most effective: he had already cleaned up the video as best he could, leaving them with a printout of a man in his early forties, with dark brown hair and a baby face.
Grissom was ready to send the photo to out for an APB, but Archie stopped him. "Watch this. It's called the eigenface approach," Archie said, as his fingers clattered across the keys. The suspect's face was enlarged, and Archie picked out various features. When he was finished, the computer took off, flashing and then discarding hundreds of pictures each minute. Grissom was doubtful, but Archie looked pleased. "I've been wanting to try this for ages. It selects features from a suspect's face, and compares it against existing mug shots in the database."
"How long does it take?" Grissom asked, impatient. Twelve hours had passed already, and every minute was precious.
"That long," Archie replied, and a moment later, the monitor flashed three faces at them. They all looked as if they were the man in the video. Archie leaned forward.
"One of these guys is in the penn, and one's dead. Only one that's out previously served ten years for aggravated assault and battery. One count of stalking, too."
Grissom snatched up the printout that Archie made of Dumont's file, and set off for Brass' office.
Chapter 3
"You're not eating."
Sara looked up from the plate of Hamburger Helper on the table in front of her. She still felt woozy, but it only took her a few seconds to focus on the man who sat across from her. He looked concerned.
"You're not going to feel better until you start eating, Sara." He smiled in what was meant to be a reassuring manner. "You're too thin, young lady."
"Who are you?" Sara asked. "Why are you doing this?"
The man frowned. "I'm Bill, honey. You keep forgetting. Are you alright?"
Sara stared at him, and pointedly rattled the handcuffs that bound her hands to the arms of the chair. "I'm tied to a chair," she said.
Bill looked pensively at her. "Well, that's to keep you from running away," he said. He carefully enunciated each word, as if speaking to a slow child. "It won't always have to be like this. Just until you understand."
"Understand what?"
"That you're mine now." At Sara's still disbelieving stare, he added, "You're my wife."
Silence descended on the table. Sara searched for words, but before she could speak, Bill motioned towards her hand. "That's my ring on your finger, Sara. You accepted it hours ago. Remember?"
She looked down. A diamond-studded ring glinted at her in the dim light. She tried to bring her hands together, to get the ring off, but the handcuffs didn't give her enough slack. She tugged at the restraints a few times for good measure, but there was no fixing it. Irritation bubbled up inside of her, overcoming her fear.
"I'm not your wife, Bill," she said firmly. "You've gotten the wrong girl. Now, if you let me go, I'll go my way, and you'll go yours, and nobody will ever know..."
"Sa-ra," Bill said in a sing-song voice, as he rose from his chair. He leaned over and put his hands on the table before him. "I know you're a little confused, but you've got to believe me. We're married. We're in love!"
"You're insane."
The words bubbled out before Sara could stop them. She froze.
Bill's frown deepened. He moved around the table until he was at her side, and put his hand on her shoulder. "What did you say?" he asked.
"I, uh..." Sara swallowed, her throat dry. There had never been a class on how to reverse a mistake like the one she had just made.
Bill brushed her hair to one side, and leaned over to whisper in her ear. "I'm. Not. Insane."
His hands descended on her shoulders again. "Ah, Sara. I really had hoped that you would be the one." He sighed. "You seemed so smart, you know? Not like the others. And nice. I saw the way you made that girl feel better in the coffee shop. I thought..."
Another sigh. Bill shook his head. "Well, nobody's perfect. I'll just have to keep trying."
Sara didn't move, tense and alert for his next move. She knew when he breathed, when his fingers twitched, and she knew how quickly her heart was pounding in her chest. When he leaned over and began to unlock her handcuffs, she jerked convulsively away from his ministrations.
He shushed her, reaching up to stroke her arm before going back to work. She stared at him, wide-eyed, until both handcuffs had fallen noisily to the linoleum.
"You're letting me go?" she stammered.
"Oh, certainly," replied Bill. He took her hand and helped her to her feet. He smiled down at her--she hadn't realised that he was so much taller than her until now. "Ever since Evelyn passed on, I've been looking for someone to take her place. Apparently you're not that woman."
"I, uh, guess not," Sara said, still bewildered. This was unlike any kidnapping she had ever read about. She looked down at her hand, and moved to take off the ring from her finger. Bill moved to stop her.
"No,no, no," he murmured, shaking his head. "A wife should never take off her wedding band. ''Til death do us part,' remember?" A cold feeling dropped into Sara's stomach as his fingers tightened their grasp on her hand. "It's time for us to part, my dear Sara."
He released his grasp so that he could get a better hold on her, but Sara was too quick. She threw herself at him, surprising him enough to knock him off balance so that he tumbled into the table. She scrambled to her feet, fast, but wasn't fast enough. He grabbed her ankle, sending her sprawling.
"Sara," Bill said through grit teeth, as she wriggled and kicked like a captured cat. "It doesn't have to be like this!"
Her right foot finally met its mark, smashing Bill's nose with a satisfying crunch. Sara leapt to her feet and ran for the first door she saw: a heavy metal beast that took precious seconds to haul open.
At the first draught of cold air, Sara knew she had made a mistake. The high windows, the damp air. She was in a basement apartment. This door didn't lead outside. It was a--
A hand descended over her mouth. The sickeningly sweet smell of chloroform filled her nostrils. Surprised, she inhaled sharply, and immediately felt the world begin to melt around her. She tried to fight him off, but beyond a few halfhearted kicks to his shins, she couldn't muster the energy. She felt a tug at her neck--he was going to strangle her. Strangulation, her mind recited: petechial hemorrhaging, fracturing of the hyoid bone, blue lips, blue fingernails--
And then she thought no more.
"Bill Dumont?"
He didn't look especially imposing. Grissom watched as the man pressed a hand towel a little more firmly to his nose. He could see that there were scratches on his forearms. Brass stared at him in his usual phlegmatic way. "Had a little problem, Mr. Dumont?"
"Fell," Dumont said nasally. He motioned towards the mess of a basement behind him. Chairs had been flung to the ground, and blood trails littered the area. "Took me a bit to find a clean towel. Don't want an infection or anything." He paused, as if suddenly realising that having police officers at your door was not a daily occurrence. "What's the problem?"
"We're investigating a kidnapping," said Brass. "You were seen in her vicinity shortly before the kidnapping occurred. I don't suppose you know anything about it?"
Dumont shook his head. "Nuh uh. I've had enough trouble with the police. I'm just keepin' out of trouble now, mister..."
"Brass," Brass finished. He nodded towards Grissom. "And this is Gil Grissom."
Grissom watched as Dumont's jaw tightened slightly. "Hello, Mr. Dumont," he said smoothly. "I would appreciate if I could have a look in your apartment. It would help rule you out of the investigation."
"You haven't got a warrant or you wouldn't be asking," replied Dumont with a shake of his head. "'Til you got one, our business is none of your business."
"That's your right," Brass began to say, but Grissom cut him off. "I didn't realise you had remarried, Mr. Dumont."
Dumont eyed him steadily. "It's lonely out there, Gil Grissom. Evelyn wasn't coming back."
"I suppose so," Grissom replied. He nodded towards Dumont's apartment. "Say, that's a pretty necklace. I've got a girl who wears the exact same one."
Dumont whirled around to stare at the broken and bloodied necklace that lay on the floor behind him. He froze for a moment, and when he turned back to the door, his eyes held none of the calm suspicion that they did before.
"She's not yours!" he shouted, dropping the towel and heading for Grissom. "Sara's mine! I told you, she's mine!" Grissom backed away as Brass grabbed Dumont. A pair of uniformed officers came down from their position at the top of the stairs to help, and soon enough, Brass and the other officers were marching Dumont back to the police car.
Grissom made his way into the apartment, feeling his heart drop as he saw that there was more blood than he had originally thought. Silence pounded in his ears: underground, even the sound of traffic was extinguished.
He was about to look in the bedroom when a flash of red caught his eye. There was a door in the wall of the dining room. A smear of bright, fresh blood stained the doorknob, with another pool of blood on the linoleum below. It was smeared, as if the door had been opened over it.
Grissom took a glove from his kit and carefully opened the door. Cold air swept over him, though the chill he felt had nothing to do with its coolness. It was a walk-in freezer. Wide shelves lined the walls, upon which were...
"Sara..." he groaned, walking over to the nearest woman. Her skin was blue and covered in a slight film of frost. All of the women lay on their backs, hands folded sedately across their chests. A white handkerchief covered their faces. Grissom lifted up a corner of the kerchief that covered this woman's face.
It wasn't Sara.
He followed this procedure three more times before he noticed that the last body was of a different hue than the others. He walked over to it, and realised that the handkerchief over this woman's face was still damp. The smell of chloroform suddenly hit his nostrils, and the final pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Dumont would knock out the women with chloroform, place them in the freezer, and wait for the cold to do its work on them while they remained unconscious.
Which meant...
He tossed the cloth aside, revealing features that were pale, but not blue. Sara's lips were parted slightly, and her breath puffed from them in small clouds. Scratches around her neck showed where the necklace had broken off.
Grissom pulled her to his body, lifting her up off the shelf as if she weighed nothing. Had she always been so slight?
"C'mon, honey," Grissom said, more to himself than to her. "Let's get out of here."
"The doctor said a week."
Sara stuffed her jacket into her locker a little more firmly than was necessary. "I'm fine," she said. She looked up at him and smiled to prove her point. "I was going a little stir-crazy at home."
Grissom eyed her levelly. She still looked pale and wan, as if she hadn't eaten for days. "Hodges could use an extra hand in the lab," he began to offer, but her disgusted glare made him stop.
"You're kidding," Sara said, less as a question than as a statement of fact. She closed her locker and faced him, a less-than-impressed look on her face. "I'm ready to go out into the field. I don't need people watching over me like I'm..." she trailed off, and shook her head. "Listen, just let me go. I'll be fine."
Grissom frowned. Irritation fluttered at the edges of his mind. "You just got out of the hospital two days ago, after a man tried to kill you. I saw you lying there. If I hadn't--"
"Stop it!" she shouted. The ambient noise in the hallway went silent for a few awkward moments, before starting up again. Sara was breathing heavily, but she controlled herself. "Just let me go. Please. I just want to get back to work."
Grissom couldn't think of anything else to say. They stood, face to face for a few moments, until he finally took a slow step to the right to let her pass. Sara looked down at the floor, unable to meet his gaze, and headed towards the conference room.
Before she had taken more than a couple of steps, Grissom's hand closed on her wrist. "Sara..." he began.
Sara jerked her hand out of his grasp, surprising him enough that he took a step back. She wouldn't turn her face towards him, and a curtain of brown hair kept him from seeing her expression.
"Goddammit, Grissom. Why did it have to be you?"
Grissom could still feel where his fingers had touched her. She'd been as cold as when he had found her in the freezer. When he had saved her.
She'd wanted to be saved, didn't she?
Didn't she?
Fin