Title: When the Rain Comes

Chapter: Just Maintain Consciousness

Author: Chrissy0

Pairing: Sandle

Chapter warning: Depiction of suicide

Grissom heard Greg's frantic shout, and perceiving the urgency in his tone, ran towards it, kit in hand and camera bouncing heavily around his neck. "Greg? Where are you? What's wrong?" he shouted into the night air. As he approached the scene, he heard a car door slamming and an engine gun loudly. He quickly pinpointed the vehicle when he spotted the SUV's taillights shining closely in the dark as it drove away. Grissom quickly shone his flashlight around the clear area, looking for Greg, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Greg was gone.

Thinking as quickly as one could under the circumstances, Grissom hastily snapped several pictures of the rear of the vehicle as it drove away through the desert brush. "Greg!" he called out once more, scanning the surrounding desert with his flashlight, just to be sure that Greg was indeed gone. Grissom's heart was thumping quickly, partly from the exertion of running, but also partly from fear for the fate of his young subordinate. Convinced by now that Greg was indeed gone, he flipped open his cell phone and dialed quickly. "Brass, I have bad news...I believe Greg Sanders has just now been kidnapped. No, I'll tell you more later. My evidence is about to wash away," he said, watching as the dark threatening thunderhead clouds covered the moon, which, for a scant moment, shone in bright contrast to the dark night sky.

Grissom snapped the phone shut and picked up his camera, quickly laying down yellow evidence markers and taking photos of the tire treads indented in the dirt. Shining his flashlight around, he noticed a small dark patch of sand, stained with what he hoped would not turn out to be blood. Pulling a swab out of his kit, he took a sample. The light rain was slowly beginning to come down harder, but he continued to sweep the area with his flashlight, hoping to discover some small bit of evidence, that, more closely examined, would hopefully later serve as a clue. He noticed in the sand a larger chunk of the white cement-like substance that he had collected earlier.

He gathered it, and as he did, the clouds broke and the rain began to come down in earnest, steadily soaking through his clothing until he was all but drenched. Fearing for the evidence he had already collected, he put his camera in his kit and closed it to prevent it from being soaked and ruined. He ran back towards the original scene, almost colliding with Brass, who had come running.

"Did you find anything?" Brass shouted over the thundering of the rain.

"Yes!" Grissom shouted back, hardly able to hear himself, as water poured down his head, face, and body in clear rivulets. "I may have a few leads, but I need to get it back to the lab as soon as possible to process this," he said, indicating his evidence collection kit. He turned but Brass grabbed his arm. "What?"

"Are you going to be able to get anything else from these crime scenes?" Brass asked.

"I don't know, Brass," Grissom said, shaking his head. "Keep a couple of your men here and I'll send Nick and Catherine out as soon as possible."

"You got it," Brass said, releasing Grissom's arm and sending him on towards the SUV. "I hope you find something, Gil."

"Me too, Jim."

Grissom climbed into his SUV, sitting there for a moment, as his soaked clothing saturated the seat, regrouping his thoughts for a second. Then he started the engine and headed towards the lab with his evidence kit on the seat beside him.

Greg came back to consciousness with a painful slowness. Every part of his body felt as if it were on fire, and the agony of it was nauseating. He groaned quietly, in pain and confused. It took him a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. His vision cleared somewhat, but spots were still dancing in his eyes, and all that surrounded him was darkness.

As he slowly became a little more alert, he realized that he was moving. Slowly and painfully he reached upward in the darkness, and his hands immediately came in contact with something soft. Fabric. He pushed aside the blanket that was covering him, wincing as the light flooded his eyes, temporarily rendering his as good as blind. Once again, his eyes adjusted slowly to the change in light, and he saw that he was in the back of a vehicle. He tried to lift himself up from his supine position on the floor of the vehicle, but then his head began spinning and the pain became too much, and he quickly gave up.

Greg looked down at his shirt, and saw a good deal of dried blood there, but there was also fresh blood on the shirt. He had no idea how long he'd been out of consciousness, but it must've been quite a while. He slowly unbuttoned his shirt to check out how bad the wound was, shuddering as he saw the knife puncture in his abdomen, for the most part surrounded by dried blood, but still slowly dripping fresh blood. Thankfully, though, the knife had appeared to miss any vital organs. Otherwise I wouldn't even be alive right now.

Then Greg heard a strange sound coming from the front of the SUV. It was frightening and sad all at the same time. It was a mumbling that sounded tortured and tormented, punctuated by an occasional moan. Greg stilled his movement, hoping that the man who was driving, his kidnapper, had not heard his shifting around in the back.

One moment they were moving, and the next, the vehicle was slamming to a stop so suddenly that Greg was propelled into the back of the seat in front of him. The sudden pain was so intense that he almost passed out. His vision grew dark and his ears were ringing loudly, and, nauseated from the viscous pain, he retched, vomiting up whatever was in his stomach along with bile and blood. Tears squeezed out of his closed eyes from the stinging pain. He could tell that his wound had opened once again, because he could once again feel the blood flowing freely down his side.

He was trying to comprehend exactly what was going on when suddenly he heard the vehicle's glove box click open, and then shut again. Greg desperately tried to keep still to keep the man's attention away from him. Then he heard the distinct sound of a gun being cocked, and his blood ran cold from the fear that pervaded him. I'm going to die. He braced himself for the sound of the rear door opening and the sight of his attacker, brandishing a weapon.

But it never came. The mumbling only grew louder and more anguished, more tortured. And then a gunshot rang out. Greg flinched at the sudden sharp noise that reverberated quickly around the small SUV's interior. Ever so slowly and painfully, Greg inched himself upward and carefully peered over the back of the seat. The man who'd kidnapped him was slumped over the wheel of the Bronco, a gun in his hand and a bullet through his head. Blood spatter on the car windows slowly dripped downward. Greg looked around, and all he could see through the SUV windows was golden sand. Desert and more desert It stretched out its vast expanse, as though it would never end.

Growing dizzy from the ever-increasing loss of blood, Greg slowly let himself back down. He bunched up a corner of the dirty blanket that he'd been covered with and pressed it tightly against his open wound, drawing breath in between closed teeth and hissing from the pain of the pressure on his wound. His mind was slipping away, worn from pain and fatigue. His thoughts were incoherent and jumbling as if they were being tossed around in a clothes dryer, but one coherent thought managed to surface before he slipped into the infinite blackness of unconsiouness...They'll find me.

I'm sorry this update has been so long in coming! I promise I will try to never do that again. R & R!