Title: Bright Lights; Dig City Author: Jayke Manners

Category: Drama / Angst

Spoilers: Only received up to Ch-Ch-Ch Changes in Aussie – so pretty much anything up to there…

Disclaimer: I do not own CSI or it's Characters. If I did Mr Will would be at the mercy of mine. (Bring the handcuffs CSI man)

Summary: Casefile / Angst / GS

I've reposted the last chapter with a few TINY adjustments, I feel like I'm rushing a bit and I think it's starting to show. I feel better now I touched up the last one and I hope this is a little more up to par. Thanks all for bearing with me on this one, your reviews are muchly appreciated!

THIRTY – EIGHT

The riddle sounded simple. It reminded Sara of one from her childhood years, 'What's black and white and read all over?' But this riddle was different, and she wasn't guessing for a slice of chocolate brownie now…

"Shall I repeat it for you, Sara?" Corbett asked. He was smug - too smug, as though he knew something else entirely that wasn't part of the game.

"No." she replied. She looked around the room, taking in the faces that surrounded them, silently begging for their help. The question rattled around inside her head, knocking against the other thoughts and bouncing onward as if her brain were a pinball game. 'What cleans the more it gets dirty, and no one ever notices?' But the faces offered no respite, only haunted eyes and quiet whispers that fell onto the table and danced along the steel. Sara bit her lip and as she struggled for an answer, fell into the darkness of her memory…

She couldn't move, hands tugging at her, dragging her backwards. A dull ache in her head, all she'd heard was a cracking noise, now this… Everything was black and blurred. A familiar noise – a garbage tie? The quick zip as it drew her hands together, cutting the skin on her wrists. LIGHT! Two faces, no fake faces – what was that word? Oh my god… Scream, Sara, SCREAM! No shh, quiet Sara girl. Shut up Sara, that's the way. 'What cleans the more it gets dirty?' You need a good clean, you're filthy now, all this dirt in your hair and scraping up your back. Think of the evidence. 'Why the hell aren't you fighting? You're just going to lie here and take it?' That voice again. You're bleeding, you know. Your head's pretty messed up, but then it always was. Grissom wont like it. Oh God, Grissom. 'No one ever notices.' You can say that again. Well they'll notice you now – just like an artist, you used to be one, once. Remember? But that was long ago, with sea and sandcastles… You'll get his full attention when you're a DB. How fucking ironic.

Funny thing was, she didn't really have any other place to be that night. The thought struck Sara as her jeans were ripped open and a hand closed in on her face, yanking her hair as a thumb pressed into her cheekbone. A strange thought, but nonetheless, true. She felt a few pops under her skin, like little bubbles of air bursting around her eye. She'd felt that before. The bones around the eye are fragile, paper thin layers. Occipital fractures, they'd take a while to heal. If they healed. Now there's a thought. Nowhere else to be… A kind of muffled scream as her hands were pulled above her head and the sinews in her shoulder twisted in protest, it took a backhand across the mouth for her to realise that's where it had come from. 'You're not moving Sidle,' the little Sara inside her head was patronising, 'Don't you think it's time you did something?'

"It was my way in," Corbett's voice drifted in and out. "Of course I used other methods, but really – I always found anonymity preferable to authority. You'd think people are less likely to question authority, but its not true. There are other ways."

Corbett's voice droned on in the background, he didn't seem to notice that Sara wasn't quite all there. "It's better to be seen yet not seen," he told her. "That way one can watch, without being watched."

"Well no one's going to see you here in the bushes." Little Sara sat back on her haunches, shaking her head in disgust. It was like watching a scene from a b-grade movie, no use talking to the screen. Pathetic really, the way the girl kept valiantly struggling, a good CSI to the end. Collecting skin scrapings with her nails, biting into a wrist for mould comparisons, she even scored a few hits of her own, pretty good shots too. Double fisted, a broken nose, maybe a few ribs, those close combat classes were well worth it. Pity they didn't have a defence strategy for concussion… After a while, little Sara turned her back. It was a good effort, not that it counted for much – in the end the deed was done. And even little Sara felt the final blow, the one that sent the world rushing backwards – farther and farther away until there was no sight of it at all.

"I really did expect more from you." Corbett admitted. "And your supervisor, Grissom isn't it?"

Sara stiffened, snapping back into reality with a jerk. "What's he got to with it?"

"You were together when we first met," Corbett answered her with a knowing smile. "Don't you remember? The Meade case, drowning in a pool? Lucky number seven?" His eyes began to shimmer and he leaned in closer. "I knew there was something, special, about you. You have a way of moving, Sara, do know that? At least, you did back then. So direct, so fluent and confident. It's a pity…" He let the thought slip away, then his voice lowered, almost reverent. "I knew at that moment, you were going to change my life. I'd been settling for second best for so long… when I met you I finally realised, I could have anybody I wanted. I could let go of Jessica, I could let go of everything." He looked at her as if he'd just realised something, "I never thanked you for that." He sighed and leaned back, replaying the moment in his head somewhat differently to the way it had occurred.

"Oh my god."

The words left Sara's mouth without her will. She suddenly saw him, standing in the hotel room, in the doorway as she and Grissom discussed the pattern of red seeping into the ceiling. Her mind suddenly went into overtime and the alarm that had served her so well throughout the years blasted in her head with the power of a jet engine. Connect the dots Sidle, it's all part of the web. One strand leads to another, find the association. "Coffee? Tea? I have refreshments…" The offer rejected politely, a knowing glance at Grissom. His soft, rewarding smile. One of those rare moments when they connected, so briefly… Wait – Corbett's eyes, they were somewhere else, on another body, in another costume. A uniform. Official? No, not authority. Not authority? Where did that come from? 'What cleans the more it gets dirty?' Anonymity. 'And no one ever notices…"

And like a light flickering on in a darkened room, Sara understood.

"You were watching me for weeks weren't you?" she asked. "In the hallway, the break room, the car park… You were right there..." She thought back to all the times she'd seen his face, nodded in hello or simply passed by deep in thought, not even seeing him in the hallways as he swept and mopped. A slight laugh of disbelief left Sara's lips as finally, the picture formed in her mind.

"You're the janitor."