A/N: Thanks for the reviews! Keep them coming please! Well… here we go again! Enjoy!
888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
Day 1
9:47 AM
It wasn't long before the rest of the group found Grissom at a computer screen, eyes staring intently at its contents. His brows furrowed, and head nearly touching the monitor, Catherine noticed that something was definitely going on inside his head.
"Griss, you all right?" she asked coming over to stand next to him and waving the rest of them over. "What's going on?"
"What do you see?" he asked them. He moved out of the way so that everyone could look at the screen. When everyone assumed the same position he was in only moments before, Nick informed them of their discovery.
"Um, are we supposed to be seeing something?"
"Yes," Grissom answered. "And that's what we're not seeing."
"So she didn't take her GPS system with her?" Warrick asked, more of a statement than a question.
"It seems she didn't," Grissom told the group.
"So," Brass interrupted, heaving a large sigh, "we're back at square one."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was a few hours into the drive, and Sara knew she was lost. Great, she thought, I'm alone, lost, but I have my GPS! When she went to use it, she suddenly remembered the past day's events.
Sara Sidle was walking back to her car from a casino robbery gone bad when she noticed the windows of her Denali smashed open. She looked inside to realize that her radio/cd player and her GPS unit were missing. She meant to file a report, but got caught up on a double homicide and completely forgot.
Great, just great, she thought. Now what?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10:21 AM
"So we have no idea where she is, and no way of tracking her?" Greg asked to no one in particular.
"Yeah," Catherine told him. "And we better not be looking for a corpse," she added quietly, but loud enough for the group to hear.
This immediately sent a shiver down Grissom's spine. He hadn't even considered it, hadn't allowed himself to consider it, but now that he was thinking it, he couldn't get it out of his mind. Everything around him blurred away, and it was just him, and endless thoughts of life without Sara. And he almost passed out.
Not even Catherine's not so gentle shaking could pull him out of the dark void he had entered in his mind. It was a place he had hoped he would never go, a place that was so far in the dregs of his mind that he had to brush away the cobwebs and the dust. But as soon as he had settled in, there was no going back.
They were going to find Sara, alive, or else they would never again find Grissom.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sara found a small convenience store about ten miles after she concluded she was lost for good. Hoping against everything that the store carried a road map, she practically ran into the store. I guess rationality wasn't on top of my brain functions when I left this morning, she thought, and scolded herself for not bringing a map with her.
When she walked in, a kind, old lady at the counter greeted her. "Hello, dear. Lookin' for anything in particular today?"
As soon as Sara stepped through the door, she wondered if there was anything to be looking at. Many of the shelves were empty, and the magazines were numbering below ten.
"Um, yeah," Sara said as she took off her sunglasses to see in the dimly lit room. "You wouldn't happen to have any road maps, would you?"
"Why, yes, yes I do. Where're you plannin' on goin' today? Some one special at the end of your ride?" she asked as she pulled out, what Sara thought, was possibly the oldest road map she'd ever seen.
"Yeah, someone special," she answered absently. "Is this the only one you have?"
"Yes it is. Not many people come 'round this road, 's been here since the day I started up this here place. There's business enough, though, so I don't worry 'bout it too much."
"So, how much?" Sara asked as she began fishing out her wallet.
The old lady handed it to her, saying, "You look like you've got enough troubles on your mind for the day. Don't worry, I'll cover it." When Sara was about to argue, the woman merely raised her hand and handed her the map. Sara thanked her, feeling her spirits lighten up for the first time in a while. Something was going right.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11:02 AM
Something was definitely not going right at the crime lab. Grissom was holed up in his office; door locked, lights off, and blinds shut. Catherine and Warrick were sitting on the couch in the break room waiting for Greg to finish brewing his special blend. Nick was talking to Brass at the table, discussing possible means and motive for someone to kidnap Sara.
They couldn't understand who would want to take her, she rarely ventured away from the lab, so it would be fruitless to try to find people who had a grudge on her. They were thinking that maybe someone from an old case, a suspect maybe, had taken her, but it was highly unlikely. Sara had a gun and a fist of fury, and even if someone had taken her, she would have left something behind; a clue she'd know they would find. But after a very thorough search by Nick and Warrick, they still couldn't find anything.
It was a while before anyone spoke, and none were shocked when Greg was the first to pipe up. "Has anyone checked on Grissom lately?" Catherine resisted the urge to snort at the absurd comment. She knew Grissom, and she knew that right now he was racking his brains to somehow find the answer to where Sara was; to find the answer to why he'd waited so long.
And as he sat there, alone in his dank office surrounded by jars of things unmentionable in polite conversation, he wondered if he was too late. If this was what Sara meant by the warning. Maybe she did just up and leave, he thought. Maybe she's given up on whatever she was holding onto. Me, he thought as he pounded his head on the desk. He knew how much he'd hurt her; how much he'd longed for her. But he would never, could never, give into those feelings.
She was to young, to smart, to beautiful to want a stodgy old science geek who spent his off days racing cockroaches. He didn't deserve her. But she showed interest, and he pushed her away every time. Every fucking time, he thought, and just once I could have said yes. But no, I just had to keep my distance, and couldn't be hurt… just like I hurt her, he thought, much to his disdain. He knew what he had done. He knew he'd been misleading and cruel, had been untrustworthy. But he knew that she was still waiting for him to come around. And he couldn't understand why someone like her could show any interest in someone like him.
But she had. And Grissom knew about all things that he had to find her, alive, one way or another. With that new found thought, he popped some of his migraine pills, turned on his lights, opened his shades, and headed out of his office for what he viewed as his second chance with a one Sara Sidle.
