Disclaimer: These characters are the property of CBS, inc.

Spoiler: Unbearable.

Okay, the pain of last Thursday is starting to fade. Making Grissom miserable helps. The story takes a serious turn now. The angst and drama are being kicked up a notch. Hope that keeps you involved. I need my readers, and the encouragement you all send me in your reviews. I am being read by some esteemed company, and I want to thank my fellow writers for taking the time to read and review.

Sheila

Afraid of the Light

Chapter 4

Catherine stood in his doorway. She waited for him to notice her, but he didn't. He sat in the dark, the sole light being the small lamp at his desk, and stared at the same page in his journal for several minutes. Finally she knocked lightly on the doorframe. He looked up.

She didn't wait for an invitation. "Hey Gil, how you doing?"

"Busy."

"So take a few minutes." She settled into a chair.

He sighed and put down his magazine.

"You look like hell, and everyone in the lab is afraid of you."

"Thank you, Catherine, I will attend to it. Will you excuse me?" He got out of his chair as if to usher her out.

She stayed put, arms folded across her chest. "Is she really leaving?"

"That's what she says."

"And you're going to let her?"

He squeezed his eyes shut. "It's probably time for her. She's outgrowing her position."

She rolled her eyes at him. He sat back in his chair and looked at the back wall. "Catherine, how did I become a monster?"

She rested her face on her palms and considered his question. "She cared about you forever, and you never took her seriously. Sometimes you even enjoyed it. The attention, the adulation, the intense loyalty. And Sara…well, she was so single minded about you. She never seemed to understand the struggles of being with a man like you."

"The struggles of being with a man like me…" Grissom repeated her words slowly.

"Your words, not mine."

"I've probably been as obsessed with her as she was with me. But I took it for granted. I kept her at arms length. I couldn't risk it. She has so much feeling, so much heart. It scares me."

Catherine let out a deep breath. "I've never heard you like this before."

He didn't answer. He just sat there quietly in the dark.

"How do you feel about Sofia?"

He shrugged. "She's beautiful, intelligent, sexy. We share similar interests."

"Feelings! Bugman. Feelings!"

He threw up his hands. "I don't know!"

She shook her head. "Sara should have killed you with her bare hands a long time ago."

"I've lost her."

"I know, Gil."

"It hurts, Catherine."

She leaned forward. She wanted to tell him that he still had time. He could confess everything. He could ask for her forgiveness. He could change. But she couldn't bring herself to say it as she suspected that it truly was too late. Instead, she reached across his desk, taking his hand and squeezing it. "I'm sorry." She said before leaving him to his dark office.

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Sara sat at the kitchen table. The room was pristine. Sterile. All of the colors were brown or beige. There was a dank smell around her. She shivered a little as she felt the kitchen table beneath the palms of her hands. A man sat at this table and ate there. A man who beat and cut and tortured women, and made them beg for their lives sat at this table on a daily basis, and then he would sit down and eat like a normal human being.

Danny sat down at the table across from her. "What are you thinking about right now?"

"We live in a world where we can know someone is a killer. We can feel it. See it. But we can't do anything about it if a Byzantine set of protocols are not followed. It's crazy."

"A couple of years ago, a guy, name of Graham Spaulding, walked after confessing to murder and sexual assault. Literally, I think I was nauseous for a month."

"Are they finding anything?"

"I don't know. The crew cut keeps glaring at me though. Wanted to know why I'm still hanging around here."

She smiled. "Nicky is protective."

"And the other two; geek boy and jazzy cool. What are their names?"

"Greg and Warrick."

"It's nice that they all took time to come over and do another search."

"I figured the place needed fresh eyes."

"Speaking of fresh eyes, you look pretty done in, Miss Sidle."

"You've been up as long." She reached across the table and fixed the cuff of his sleeve.

"Are you sure you're ready to leave?"

"I have to. I have made such a fool of myself. I can't live like this anymore."

"You thought about New York?"

"You think there's a place for me there?"

He scratched at his scruffy head. "I tell my boss about you, and well, you can pretty much start looking for an apartment."

"Do it, Danny."

He nodded and smiled. "All right. I will."

She rested her head in one arm, leaving the other one outstretched. He reached over and laced his fingers in hers.

"Is something happening here, Sara?"

She lay there looking at him for a moment. "I don't know. Are you into women with emotional baggage?"

"That's supposed to make me run screaming, and usually it would. But it feels like we have known each other for years. I don't understand it."

"I bet you say that to all the girls."

He made a face. "Uh, that's the point. I don't say that to any of the girls. I just broke every rule I ever made for relationships."

She lifted her head and pulled her hand away. "Danny, I'm not there yet. God help me, but I still love him."

He made an exaggerated gesture of wiping sweat from his brow. "Whew! That was a close one. Thankfully, I can now return to my shallow but safe existence."

"Not if I'm going to be in town, Taylor. This is only the beginning of many soul searching conversations. We're going to help each other climb out of our pasts."

"Ahem!" Sara whirled around to see a stern Nick looking at them from the doorway.

"Find anything?"

"Nope. However, it looks like you did." He had his arms folded tightly across his chest.

Sara rolled her eyes. Danny looked up with an amused smile. "How's it going there, Soldier?"

"Do you do anything besides hit on women?" Nick glared at him.

"Nicky!" Sara stood up.

Danny put a hand on her arm. "It's okay. The crew cut just needs to get to know me. Then he can dislike me legitimately."

Her eyes reddened, and Danny could feel her shaking through the sleeve of her shirt. He gently pulled her back into her chair.

"Sara," Nicky said as he too sat down at the table.

"I can't believe how much it hurts to be leaving you guys."

"Then don't do it, Sara." Nick rubbed her back.

"But I really need to. It's best for me." She smiled at him while blinking back the tears that flooded her eyes.

"I know."

"If I end up in New York, are you going to come and visit?"

Nick gestured with his head. "Is fancy pants here going to be nosing around you if I do?"

Sara laughed. "I don't know. He's a friend."

"Yeah, but you're vulnerable right now." Nick looked at Danny.

"You gotta stop taping Oprah, Nicky." Sara said. "I'm fine."

Nick sat back in his chair. "We're recanvassing the neighbors. It's going to be another couple of hours. Go home. Get some sleep. We're going to need you later." He got up, and then stopped at the doorway, looking over his shoulder. "Hey fancy pants, want to see some real police work?"

"Give me what you got. I'll drop it off for processing before I go home." Sara called after him. Danny gave her hand a squeeze and stood up.

"Fancy pants! I love that guy!" he said with a wink. Then he disappeared down the hallway after Nick.

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She spread the evidence across the table. Mostly fibers; nothing that they hadn't already collected on previous visits. In her gut, she knew that there would be no new evidence in the fuzz and threads that lay in front of her.

A shadow fell on the table, and she looked up. He stood there awkwardly.

"We tried, but I don't think we got anything new." She stepped away from the table as if to make room for him.

"We'll work it, Sara. If there is something to find, we'll find it. Go home. Get some sleep."

She felt her muscles tense. Everything lived at the surface in her now. Anger, grief, fear. It was a constant struggle to keep her eyes from overflowing with tears.

"Sara, please."

She swallowed hard and stared at the ground. "I haven't had any sleep. I'm sad, and I'm not controlling it very well. I just can't talk to you right now."

"I'm sorry."

"It's going to be hard to leave, Griss."

"Please don't."

She put up a hand to stop him, and he fell silent. She turned and walked out of the room. He watched her for one wrenching moment. Then Grissom the enigma, the unfeeling man burst open wide. He whirled around, and drove his hand flat into the wall. A resounding thud traveled from the wall up through his arm. He felt a howl rush up his throat, but he used every ounce of self control he had left to swallow it again. Trembling, he leaned against the wall, gritting his teeth against the throbbing pain radiating from his wrist.

Holding his arm tightly to his middle, he looked up. She was standing in the doorway, shock etched on her features. The humiliation of his naked emotions played on his face.

She saw his pain and looked away. Slowly, she spoke, her eyes focused on the table, "I wanted you to know, in case I don't have a chance,…who knows what the next few days will bring, I want you to know that you're a good man, and I'm proud to have known you." Then she was gone, the image of her fading into the empty doorway.

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Greg stared out of Hatfield Corcoran's kitchen window. Behind him, Nick, Warrick, and Danny Taylor sat at the kitchen table rehashing the case file.

"We know what we're doing, Taylor," Nick said.

"Of course, you do, but it is my job to go over it again. I'm like that pesky fly on the dashboard that you just can't kill. I won't stop. I'm going to keep buzzing until I shake something loose." Danny had his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up.

"Were you raised by wolves?" Warrick asked.

Danny smirked. "Funny one, Jazzy cool."

"That's CSI Brown to you." Warrick shook his head.

Greg backed away from the window. "Hey guys, when I talked to Mrs. Watson next door, she said that Corcoran likes to garden, almost every night at dusk he goes out for 30-60 minutes."

Nick looked over his shoulder. "Yeah, you were wondering why someone would garden at dusk, and I reminded you that some people do it because of the heat."

"Do you guys garden?"

They all looked at him as if he had inquired as to their arts and crafts routines.

Unperturbed, Greg continued. "Well, I do. And I have been staring at Corcoran's garden, and I think it is a pretty sad little patch. It looks pretty neglected."

"So?"

"So, what's he doing every night out there for half hour to an hour?"

Three chairs scraped back simultaneously, and they all joined him at the window.

"He keeps a shovel by the back door," said Nick.

"He's a meticulous guy. He wouldn't leave a shovel there for no reason." Warrick said as he followed his colleagues out the back door.

Greg stood at the garden for a moment and surveyed it. He saw it almost immediately; an area where the plants were fading faster than the other areas. He pointed it out, and Danny marched out there in his suit pants, and started digging. It was less than five minutes before he hit metal.

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They crowded into Archie's cubicle, and watched as he placed a tape into the recorder. Grissom stood at the back, trying to ignore the pain stabbing through his rapidly swelling wrist. He turned to Greg. "You couldn't reach Brass on his cell? And you tried to page him?"

Greg nodded impatiently. Archie played with the video and audio for a moment, and then an image flashed onto the screen. A woman was sitting in a room, naked. She was begging someone. It was clear that this person was the one holding the camera. Grissom knew that he was watching Geneva Austin in the hours before her murder. The camera zoomed in, and she screamed. The men gathered around the screen sucked in breath collectively. With his good hand, Grissom caught Archie's eye, and slashed across his neck. The video died. Eyes turned to him.

"We preserve her dignity, gentlemen. The video is evidence. Only those processing it will see it."

He got no protest. Everyone looked relieved to not have to watch this woman's torture.

"Archie, you got all five of them?"

Archie nodded. He had five tapes, each labeled with the name of a murdered girl. The thought that he held a record of such enormous pain in his hands made him shudder.

Danny broke out from the group as if unable to stand still any longer. He paced. "He said he liked to watch. He catches the girls, brings to his partner, and gets a videotape as reward."

"Sounds reasonable." Grissom responded.

Danny swung around and pointed. "I don't care what your politics are. We are going to fry his ass in the chair, and I plan on being there in the front row with a box of popcorn and a soda."

For a moment, he reminded Grissom of Sara; bundles of infectious energy and passion. Maybe Danny Taylor would be good for her. Maybe he could understand her better, challenge her with his own passion. Grissom tried to consider this rationally, but it left him with nothing but an ache in his gut.

"Grissom! Grissom!"

Grissom wheeled around to find Brass striding toward him.

"He let him go. That bastard Patterson let him go. Brought him into chambers four hours ago, and bought his argument that we are being overenthusiastic in our investigation. Then he put him out on the streets, and nobody got word to us."

"Jim, we have tapes. We have all five victims on tape. Right out of Corcoran's garden."

"We have an APB out on him. Grab those tapes. We need to get a judge to sign another warrant. Come on Taylor, let's see if you have any particular muscle to bring to this party." Brass turned and headed back out the door. Danny scooped up the tapes and followed Grissom out the door.

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TBC