Zane awoke with a gasp. He immediately sat up, only to be faced with the cold chill of the night. He had been without a shirt for a while and wasn't too terribly affected, but he knew the girls must have been freezing. He looked over at Catherine who was turning over and over again, chattering her teeth. She was using the jacket he gave her as a blanket, but it must have been soaked through with rain, and right now it was probably only making her more cold. He looked over at Sara who hadn't moved in a really long time, maybe ever since she fell asleep making body heat for him. She must have been unconscious again. She and Catherine might die if they were out here too much longer.

Zane tried once again to sleep but what ever had woke him up also forbade him to go to sleep again. The moon was shining down brightly through the clouds. It would be full soon. He decided to take a walk. He wrote in the mud a where he had been laying "Took a walk. Be back soon." With that he got up and headed off into the night, with nothing but his shadow and the moon as his company.

Catherine awoke with a start. She had been having a terrible nightmare. Lindsey was in the car with her, Sara, and Zane. Then the crash happened, only Lindsey couldn't get out of the car in enough time before it exploded. She took a deep breath and steadied herself. Then it hit her. Lindsey! Who was taking care of her daughter? Did she even know that her mother was still alive? Catherine looked around for Zane, but he was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly the moon broke free of the clouds and she saw words in the mud.

Catherine sighed and rolled her eyes. He always took walks at night. She never knew why. He was always such a loner. It was hard for him to really connect with anyone. The only ones he really had been willing to let himself talk to was Sara and herself. Sometimes it was hard to tell if he just didn't like people on his own or if something awful happened to him to make him that way. Maybe it was just in his nature to be solitary. Maybe it was an instinct or something of his. Catherine shook her head. Whatever it was, it had a good hold over Zane. That was another thing. Catherine always found whenever Zane was around she always found herself wondering what he was thinking. She also found herself wondering that sometimes about Grissom as well, but with Zane it was different. It was like he saw the world differently, and she wondered why she couldn't see it like he did. Who knows, maybe he did. And maybe she did too, if only she wasn't too blind to notice it.

She was knocked out of her train of thought when a pile of misshapen pieces of wood and twigs were dropped at her feet.

" Do you know how hard it is to find dry wood after a thunderstorm?" Zane asked. His Irish accent was entering his voice, as it always did when he had been working hard.

" Well, I'd imagine pretty hard, considering it's been raining for a couple of days now. How long have you been gone?"

Zane looked up at the moon. " 'Bout four 'ours."

"Wow, you were working huh?" Catherine asked as she looked at the mildly dry wood.

" 'Ell yeah! At first I was just walking, and then I figured I 'ought to warm you guys up a bit with a nice fire."

" That's why we have you around Zane. Always thinking there, aren't chya?"

" Bite me."

" I thought that was your job?"

" Catherine, I swear, you keep that up…"

Catherine chuckled a bit, which was kind of odd. Here she was, stranded with her two other friends, probably not going to live much longer, in freezing cold weather, with injuries all over her body, no hope of rescue…and here she was chuckling. Just that fact made her laugh even more.

Zane stared at Catherine, amused. Suddenly Sara caught his eye. She was shaking uncontrollably.

" Cat, please tell me Sara woke up while I was gone."

Catherine shook her head, immediately worried by her colleague…no…by her friend's condition.

Zane was at Sara's side at once. He sat her up and started rubbing her arms and her back. She let out a small groan.

" C'mon Sara. Time to wake up now. I know you're cold, but if you fall back asleep with a concussion and have it be this cold out, you might not wake up. Sara…"

Sara opened her eyes but only a little. By now Catherine had gotten the driest of the wood together in a pile. She reached over and grabbed the lighter she knew was in Zane's back pocket. She hit the wheel and the tiny flame erupted. She lit the wood on fire and capped the lighter.

" This isn't going to last long Zane."

Zane moved Sara closer to the fire. " I don't care. You both need to stay warm or you will die." Sara, now tiredly awake, let Zane continue to make body heat for her. Eventually all three of them huddled together for warmth. What little body heat Zane had in the first place he was now transferring equally to Catherine and Sara. They continued this for the next couple of hours.

Zane had drifted to sleep, Sara was staring at the sunrise, and Catherine was staring distantly at the weakening fire.

" You know, I haven't really looked at a sunrise for sometime now." Sara said distantly.

" We're usually either too busy or too sleepy to notice it." Catherine said, her eyes leaving the fire and wandering over to the rising sun. The clouds had drifted away just long enough for the colors of the sunrise to reflect across that part of the sky. The blending of colors looked beautiful.

" I haven't looked at a sunrise in Vegas at all. The last time I really truly looked at one was when I was in pigtails."

They both watched the sun rise until the clouds covered it up again.

Catherine sighed. " Sara?"

" Yeah?"

" Can you do me a favor?"

" Sure."

" If I don't make it…can you…can you tell Lindsey I love her?"

Sara whipped her head to Catherine's direction, which gave her a headache. " What do you mean?"

" Well, if you make it out of this and I don't…"

" Catherine stop it! You are going to make it out of this and you're going to see your daughter again. Don't start talking like you're already dead, it's not you, and you're scaring me."

" I don't know Sara. I just keep getting more and more tired."

" Then you should get some more fucking sleep!"

" But…I'm afraid to, okay Sara? I'm afraid that if I close my eyes now I won't ever open them again."

" You will. I guarantee you. You are going to get out of this, and you're going to live on to play with your daughter and look at the sunrises. I'll make sure you do. And we have Zane. It's not like he's going to let us go that easily. We're going to make it through and we'll see Nick, and Warrick, and Greg, and Grissom again. We aren't going to loose it. Not now, not like this. We are going to die a long time from now. We'll be old women and die in our sleep. This isn't it. There's more. I promise."

Catherine stared oddly at Sara. She had to say, she didn't expect Sara to be the type for an inspiring talk. Though some part of her kept her mind down to reality and didn't believe Sara, another part of her listened to every word. They couldn't give up now. Not like this. Catherine looked over at Sara and gave her a reassuring smile. Sara smiled back before resuming her watch of the sunrise.

Suddenly there was a loud noise. It was loud enough to awake Zane with a start.

" What is that?" he asked.

" I don't know," Catherine said. " It almost sounds like…a helicopter."

And she was right. Out of the distance a helicopter flew over them and went on. It slowed down and there were a few shouts.

Catherine looked at Zane. " What are they saying?"

Zane listened intently for a moment. " They found us. They've been looking for a while. They're going to lower a harness for you guys."

Sara looked at him questioningly. " What do you mean 'you guys'?"

Zane looked at her regretfully. " I'm not going."

" What!" they both said in unison.

" They're going to take you guys straight to a hospital. I can't go, I can't risk someone finding out about me when they hook me up to a machine and realize that I don't have a heart beat."

" Zane you have to come. If you don't and you stay out here to much longer you could die." Catherine reasoned.

" I'll only stay out here until I know the coast is clear to go back to the lab."

" But what if you loose control? What if you can't help but kill someone? I won't let that happen Zane." Sara was almost in tears.

" Sara listen, you have to leave me here. I won't loose control I promise. I'll only be gone for a little while. The helicopter is far enough away so that they can't see me if I run now. I promise I'll be back soon. You will see me again."

He gave Catherine a tight hug in which she returned sadly. She knew he was right but she didn't want him to leave, not after what had happened, what he had done for them. He then turned to Sara and gave her a tight hug and a kiss on the cheek. But Sara wouldn't let him go. Catherine went to her side.

"C'mon Sara, you know it's for his, and our own good."

Sara still wouldn't let go of Zane's hand. He looked at her sorrowfully. He never wanted to cause her pain; all he wanted to do was make her happy. Regretfully he pulled out of her grasp and took a few steps away. She was crying now. He looked back at her. The helicopter had turned around and was heading back now.

" I love you Sara, I always have and I always will."

And with that, Zane took off running. He was out of sight before they knew it. Sara was taken back by Zane's parting words. She had always had feelings for Zane and she knew he was always very affectionate to her but she had no idea he felt the same way.

By now the helicopter was hovering over them. A harness dropped down to the ground as low as the helicopter could go. The helicopter could not land because of the severe slant they were on.

" So, you wanna go first Sara?"

Sara looked at Catherine. " Nah, you're the one with the daughter, you go first."

" You sure?"

" Yeah, go for it."

" You're not going to go running after Zane are you?"

" Do I look like a moron?"

" Well…"

" Oh bite me."

" That's his job remember?"

" You better be glad I'm too tired to kick your ass right now."

Catherine smiled as she gave the thumbs up sign to the rescue guy in the helicopter. He narrowed his eyes to see she was already in the harness but he shrugged and flew away. Catherine always wondered what it was like to fly. Now she knew. It gave her a rush as the helicopter flew. She saw the bird's eye view of the crash as the helicopter went higher. She went over the spot on the road where it all happened, the skid marks were still there. Sara looked so far away. Catherine could even see where Zane was watching them from a distance. He wanted to stay out of site but also wanted to make sure they were safe before he left. She saw the flood as they passed over it and prayed to God that the harness wouldn't break, like she'd seen in oh so many movies. The water raged across the road with a ferocity she'd never seen before. The helicopter slowed down and lowered to the road on the other side of the flood, a safe distance away, where cars were parked and Gil Grissom, Warrick Brown, Nick Stokes, and Greg Sanders stood. Along with them Lindsey was jumping up and down to see her mommy okay.

No one noticed it, but as the helicopter was lowering Catherine to the ground, the wire holding the rope that was holding the harness, wore some of the rope away as it cut into it, as it had been doing for a while now. The rope became weaker….

Once her feet hit the ground, Catherine unbuckled herself and stumbled over to her daughter, hugging her tight and sinking to the pavement. The EMT's ran over to her immediately with a stretcher. They picked her up and strapped her on it.

Warrick and Nick ran to Catherine's side, Grissom following behind.

" Cat, I'm so glad you're okay!" Warrick exclaimed.

" We all are, what was it like?"

" With all do respect guys, I appreciate that you're happy to see me, but I'm not the one still down there."

The helicopter was already going back for Sara. It lowered down and lowered the harness.

Sara struggled to get in it. She took a couple of minutes but eventually got herself settled in. She gave the 'rock on' sign to the guy in the helicopter, something she picked up from Zane a long time ago, knowing that he was watching her. She felt his eyes on her.

The helicopter rose up higher and started to move forward when suddenly the cable snapped. Nick, Warrick, Grissom, Cat, Lindsey, and everyone else held their breath as they saw Sara fall.

Sara screamed as she was suddenly plunging down to the ground. All that went through her head was: I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I love Zane, I'm gonna die. She opened her eyes and saw as the ground became dangerously close. She braced herself for the impact and got herself ready to face Death.

She winced and took in a short breath as she hit something. She waited a couple seconds and thought she must be dead. She slowly opened her eyes to realize she was hovering over the ground. Wait…no…she wasn't hovering. She opened her eyes all the way to see Zane looking back at her. He had caught her before she hit the ground. He gave up his cover to save her.

" Zane…"

" Are you alright?"

" Yeah, I'm fine. Zane…you saved me. You should be far away from here right now. Why'd you stay?"

" I know I should be gone. But I had to stay to make sure you were safe before I left. I'd never forgive myself if something happened to you and I wasn't there to protect you."

The helicopter flew away, leaving Sara and Zane on their own.

" Can you walk?"

Sara shook her head.

" Alright. C'mon, they can't do anything now."

Zane started walking up the steep incline. His muscles hurt and he knew he was going to pass out soon but he had to make sure Sara was safe first. He carried Sara up the hill, one arm around her back and the other under her knees. It was about ten minutes before he reached the top of the road.

" Well why couldn't we do that before?" Sara asked with a little bit of humor.

" Because that wasn't the hard part." Zane said, eyeing the raging water and his friends on the other side of it.

" No, Zane," Sara said, catching on. " You aren't seriously thinking of going across that are you?"

" If I 'ave too." He said, his Irish accent seeping back into his voice.

The helicopter came back. The man operating tried to land the helicopter on the road so they could get in it. But suddenly the ground shook. Being that the road already rested on a steep hill, it was weakened by the flooding for the past couple of days and the added weight of the helicopter was too much. The helicopter lifted up into the air just as a piece of the road fell away.

Before any more damage could be done, Zane ran into the raging water. The ice-cold water hit him like a thousand pin sharp knives but he had to get through it. He pushed through, lifting Sara up as high as he could. Every step he took seemed to do nothing but get him deeper in the water. He was so tired and he just wanted to let go. But he wouldn't. Any other lycan would have forgot about the humans and escaped but not him. He pushed on, intent on getting Sara to the other side, whether he made it or not. With every step, every breath got harder. He just kept his eye Lindsey, who was looking back at them with a look of horror on her face, and yet, a tint of hope. He used all of his strength to push against and through the water. Finally, after what seemed like forever, he was at the other side. He laid Sara down on the dry pavement, but he couldn't get himself out of the water. He leaned over to her and she stared back at him.

" I love you Sara." They shared a kiss before he pulled away and let go of the road, letting the water take him away.

Sara tried to sit up and grab him but her headache hit her at full force and everything went black.

Drop a line before you leave and it will be greatly appreciated. See you in the next chapter.

Until then,

Ravyn