Post-Butterflied

Disclaimer: I've had this in here plenty, I doubt it's even necessary at this point.

Chapter 26

Sara and Grissom joined the rest of the nightshift in the desert that night. Catherine was more than happy to have some fresh eyes on the evidence. They were still sifting through massive amounts of earth, trying to make sure nothing was left behind. Having two new people on the site was going to hopefully help out.

"Ms. Willows! We've got another one!" a young man called out frantically.

"Damn it," Catherine muttered, jogging toward the cadet who was waving her over, "don't touch it, you know the drill!"

Grissom and Sara had also heard the cadet call out and wanted to know what they were dealing with. They had briefly had time to read over the field notes taken thus far.

"Wait a minute, this one's not buried," Catherine knelt down closer to the body, careful to check for footprints first, "this looks like the killer's signature, but the bodies have all been buried so far."

"Perhaps the killer was here during the day, didn't have time to finish the job before we came out," Grissom suggested.

"Yeah, if this is in the news at all," Sara said, "the killer would have to be pretty bold to come out here knowing that we would be around."

"I think I've got a foreign hair," Catherine pulled a long, blonde hair off the man's shirt, "it definitely doesn't belong to our vic. This is the first time we've found anything. The rest were all buried and any evidence was lost in the dirt."

"I'm going to follow these tracks," Sara announced, "they're not ours or the cadet's."

Grissom and Catherine barely noticed as Sara walked away, pausing for the occasional pictures as she went. In fact, both were so engrossed in collecting evidence that they jumped when David Phillips arrived to take the body.

"Hey guys," David greeted them.

"Don't sneak up on people like that," Catherine gasped.

"I didn't think I was sneaking," David defended.

Grissom, who had visibly flinched as well, spoke, "Get a liver temp for us, please David."

"Sure thing," David knelt down next to them.

Grissom stepped back to allow David better access to the body. As he stood, he felt a few cool raindrops hit his skin.

"Rain!" Catherine shouted and suddenly everyone around flew into action.

Grissom grabbed his camera and quickly took a few more pictures of the body. Sara came running back to the scene and helped as everyone picked up their stuff and frantically tried to clear the area. Everyone ran for the cover of their vehicles and discovered they were soaking wet.

"I hate the rain," Catherine grumbled, "not only am I soaking wet, but it ruined our crime scene."

"Circumstances out of our control," Sara told her.

"Yeah, there's no sense getting really upset over the rain. We can't do anything about it. I know it's frustrating when our crime scene is ruined, but there's nothing we can do about it," Grissom said.

"You're right, it's just really frustrating because this is the first time we've found a body with uncontaminated evidence and it rains," Catherine sighed.

"The thing with these serial cases is to try and remain calm, keep your cool and be patient," Grissom told her.

"Remember what happened with the strip strangler. We got rushed because of the FBI and almost screwed it up," Sara reminded her.

"You know what, let's stop and get some coffee on our way back, my treat," Grissom offered, "we can go back to the lab and sit down and talk about everything you've found so far. That way the night is not a total wash."


Sara was in the middle of a bad day at work a few days later and was on a warpath. Everyone knew she was in a bad mood and to steer clear. She stormed into the locker room, so upset that she hadn't even noticed that Grissom had just slipped out. She opened her locker and immediately froze at the sight in front of her. There was a bouquet of beautiful red roses with a card attached. A smile forming on her face, she grabbed the flowers and carefully took the card out. It had a simple note scrawled inside in Grissom's handwriting:

"Sara,

You're having such a bad day, I thought you needed some flowers.

I love you,

Gil"

Suddenly all of her anger and sadness melted away. She slammed her locker shut, forgetting whatever she had been in there for. She ran to Grissom's office, finding him sitting at his desk, pretending to be engrossed in some research.

"I love you," she set the flowers on his desk and threw her arms around him.

"What?" Grissom couldn't his smile.

"Can't I just say how much I love you?" Sara kissed him.

"I take it you liked the flowers?" Grissom grinned.

"Yes, you're so sweet. How did you know that'd make me feel better?" Sara asked.

"I don't know, I had a hunch you'd like it," Grissom explained, "and I take it I was right."

"Just when I thought today couldn't get any worse, I open locker to find a bouquet of beautiful roses," Sara said, "and I thought I had you all figured out when you go and do something like this."

"It's because I love you," Grissom kissed her.

"I just can't stop thinking how lucky I am to have you," Sara stood.

"I know the feeling," Grissom grinned.

"I better go apologize to Nicky, I almost bit his head off earlier," Sara laughed, "thanks again for making my day better."

"Sweetie, I'd do anything if I thought it might make you happy," Grissom said as she left.

Sara walked toward the break room where she heard the other CSIs talking noisily. She entered and was not surprised when immediately everyone grew quiet. She decided to play on her earlier bad mood and slammed things around as she poured herself a cup of coffee, but she couldn't keep herself from smiling as she felt all their eyes on her back.

"Look, guys, I'm sorry. I know I was in a really bad mood earlier, I was just having a rough day," Sara apologized.

"Well that's got to be the fastest emotional turnaround I've ever seen, what gives?" Warrick asked.

"It's simple actually," Sara explained as she joined her friends, "I opened my locker and found a bouquet of roses."

"If I knew it was that easy, I would have ripped up some of the flowers at the scene and given them to you," Nick joked.

"Very funny. They were from Grissom and he just reminded me how loved I was," Sara told them.

"Ah, I remember being in love like that," Catherine smiled knowingly, "I just hope your marriage turns out much better than mine ever did."

"Well, you've always got a possibility of a second chance, you know I'll treat you like you deserve to be treated," Warrick said.

"Okay, you guys are flinging a little bit too much love around for my taste," Greg pretended to gag, "I'm going to go check up on the new techie."

All the CSIs burst into laughter as their younger counterpart bolted from the room.

"Makes me wish I had a girl just so I could torture him too, it's fun," Nick laughed.

A/N: Between the writer's block and the whole rest of the world, I had a hard time getting this chapter down. I'm not sure how much is left of this story, but I think it is finally coming to a close soon. You guys have no idea how much I really appreciate the kind reviews, I know I always say it, but it's because I mean it and there's no other way to say it!