Disclaimer: Never listen to Jiminy Cricket; he lies. I believed him and spent the last six months or so wishing on stars to own CSI, but it's yet to work.

Many, many, many thank yous to my wonderful and awe inspiring beta Stormchilde, who patiently - I think - replied to my near illiterate e-mails, rants, maddening questions and translated what I thought was English so that all my readers could understand it.

Hour Sixty - Rescued

It seemed like forever before the floor stopped shaking, the roof ceased throwing dust into the air and the resounding boom ended leaving everyone's ears ringing. Deirdre looked around as Greg's grip on her waist weakened and, after seeing that everyone was all right, she checked the ruined room more thoroughly. Everything was, predictably, shrouded in the same thick layer of dust that had covered them as it fell from the ceiling. The door was still whole but the windows that formed the one wall were all smashed, giving them a clear escape should they try.

It wasn't until then that she noticed Tyler. He had been standing right beside the glass walls when the SWAT team did whatever they had done; now he was out cold and bleeding heavily, obviously in no condition to stop them if they tried to leave.

Deirdre hesitated only for a moment before standing up, wincing a bit as she did so. She only half heard Grissom's warning about watching where she was stepping as she began to make her way across the room.

The tech had nearly crossed the room to check the halls before Brass stopped her. "We should wait for the SWAT teams to come and get us." he said quietly but firmly, holding onto her holding her upper arm to keep her from walking away and ignoring him. His grip tightened slightly as she tried to wrench the mentioned limb away from him in an attempt to do just that. "The convicts are still dangerous and you're in no condition to get your revenge against any of them." He cautioned. Noticing that she had stopped struggling, he loosened his grip on her arm.

Deirdre quickly jerked away from him. "Have you ever noticed that I don't often do what I should?" She demanded as way of reply, her own voice furious but as quiet as his. "We're suddenly handed the little golden key out of Hell and you don't expect me to want to get out? To be safe?" She glanced around at the others; at the weak and bruised Greg, at Grissom's two black eyes and split lip, at Nick, who was only partially conscious and at Catherine, whose wounds had re-opened and were beginning to bleed sluggishly once again. Deirdre's eyes were sparkling fiercely and she was obviously trying not to yell at the man. "Look at us, Brass. After all this, don't you dare expect us to hang around here like a bunch of cows until SWAT comes and rescues us."

"I'm just saying Deirdre; the convicts still have Warrick and McKenzie -"

"I'm with Deirdre on this." It was Catherine who had interrupted the police captain, her demeanor much calmer than the tech's. "We have to come to terms with this. We all heard the gunshots. Warrick and McKenzie are probably already dead and if they're not, they're just as safe as we are right now."

Greg and Nick both nodded soberly. Grissom hesitated then he too showed his acceptance of the blonde's words. Sheryl didn't do anything but Brass could tell that she also agreed with what had been said.

It was time to admit the truth. "What can I say, then? You're right." Brass sighed and shrugged his shoulders as he spoke.

" 'Bout damn time you said that." With those words, Deirdre cautiously picked her way through the mess of a room - something that was extremely hazardous with bare feet - and helped Greg to stand up. Grissom did the same for Nick and it wasn't long before Brass was checking the hall to see if the coast was clear.

The group slowly made their way through the halls, Brass took the lead and Sheryl the rear, checking each corner they went around and each room they passed for any sign of the convicts. By the time they saw Kristal lounging in Grissom's ruined office, she had a .22 hunting rifle aimed at them.

"You're not planning on leaving, are you?" She asked innocently, a huge grin on her face as she cocked the weapon. She looked like a child who had been told that Christmas had come early. "It is rude to walk out on guests. Haven't your mothers ever told you that?"

None of them answered her, all watching the rifle barrel with apprehensive looks on their faces. Deirdre, though weary of the convict, was also obviously sick of being played around with. And so, in a huge act of defiance - or stupidity - she brought up her hand where the female convict could see it and gestured rudely at her.

Kristal laughed brightly upon seeing this, something that they weren't really too surprised to hear. "My, my, you weren't brought up in some delinquent home, were you? Was your mother a whore or something? Your

father a drug dealer, with the same manners you have? Come on in and I'll teach you a few niceties."

The convict aimed her weapon at the tech, showing to them that her invitation was really an order. "Come on in," she added when they all hesitated. "I don't bite too much."

"You're right," the female tech snarled at her, her violent temper and easily provoked temper getting the better of her, leaving no room of fear - or any common sense, "you just shoot and kill people for fun."

"Would you like me to shoot that mouth of yours off? You wouldn't be able to insult people so much that way, at the very least."

"Don't you dare touch her." Greg said quickly, not daring to think about Deirdre dying as a result of this. He may not have been able to actually protect her in the state he was in, but he would still defend her.

Kristal smirked at the tech. "Like her, do you? Love her, perhaps? How much would it hurt you -"

"What is the point of this, Kristal?" Grissom, forever the scientist, finally asked. "The SWAT teams are in the lab and it won't be long

until they find us all here in this room. Why keep us here like this, when your games have been played?"

"Because it's fun to see you all squirm and quiver and wonder who's going to die first. Speaking of which, SWAT is coming soon, so I should kill you all now. It'll be easier for the rest of the thieves and murderers in Vegas to make a bigger Hell of this place, you see - something that I've always tried to help. Now…" she scrutinized them all closely. "Who should I kill first?"

Kristal's eyes fell on Brass and the aim of the rifle drifted from Deirdre to him. "How about you? I never liked you much, anyway."

The police captain looked at her squarely, his eyes betraying no fear. "Go ahead then." he told her, nodding his head in assent.

A sick grin spread across the convict's face was she took aim. "Oh, goody."

Following these words, another Earth shattering blast split through the room temporarily deafening all of its occupants. They instinctively closed their eyes to protect them against the sudden bright light that came from the weapons muzzle and all flinched when they felt warm blood splash against them, then slowly drip to the linoleum flooring.

When they opened their eyes once again, they immediately found Brass, lying in a steadily growing pool of blood. More thanhalf his head had been reduced to a mess of blood and tissue, something that made all their stomachs - save Kristal's - roll. Cast off from the wound had sprayed all over the office and their bodies, covering everything within ten feet of the police captain's corpse with crimson blood.

Catherine was the first to find her senses again. She slowly found the criminal, her mind filled with a sort of numb shock. "Bitch," she said softly, her puffy cheek only increasing the hard look in her eyes. Her words brought everyone back from the horrible happening that had taken place before them.

Kristal chose to ignore the blonde CSI's words. "Well, that was fun, wasn't it? Who would like to die next?" Her grinning face studied each of their bruised, dirty ones.

"You're twisted, you know that?" Nick told her, shocked and in disbelief, just like everyone else in the room. "You're just sick. You kill people, and talk about it like it's some game -!"

She turned her rifle towards Nick, shutting him up effectively. "Does that mean you would like to die next?" She waited for an answer, but didn't get one. "Well? Where's my answer? It's really not that difficult a question. You either say 'yes, Kristal, you've screwed up my pitiful little law-abiding life so much I don't want to live it anymore' or you say 'no thank you, Kristal, I'd rather see more of my friends die before you kill -"

"Drop your weapon and put your hands above your head."

Kristal had been so focused on killing them and they had been so intent on her and her weapon, that none of them realized that the SWAT teams had surrounded the office, their automatic guns pointed at the convict.

She looked up at the heavily-armored man who had spoken, the bright look, which had disappeared while she was speaking to Nick, was plastered once again on her face. "Alright." she said in a childish way, watching the man as she let the rifle drift towards Grissom.

Kristal pulled the trigger of her weapon seconds before SWAT did. Their rounds killed the woman instantly.

This time, though, Deirdre, Greg, Catherine and Nick were nearly deaf to the gunfire, as they were to the men that were now brushing past them to check on the woman they had just shot or trying to get them to leave the blood-stained room.

It was only Sheryl's own, somewhat familiar voice that brought them back to reality this time; back to the horrible, gruesome reality that wasn't over fast enough. Not for Brass, or Grissom and, for all they knew, not for Warrick either. "You guys?" Her voice was shaking, as was she, showing her obvious fear and remorse. "They're right, let's get out of here. There's nothing we can do, anyway."

Numbly, the criminalists let themselves be lead away from the scene that would be forever imprinted in their brains. All but Catherine, who stared, frozen, at Kristal Meenlar's final act of revenge against the crime lab that had caused her to go to prison some two years ago.

"She's right, ma'am." a SWAT corporal said, a hand on the blonde's shoulder, trying to seem comforting but at the same time attempting to lead her out of the office. Finally, tears slowly forming in her eyes as the actions of the late convict began to sink in; Catherine let the dark-clad man guide her outside where the others already were.

It was just a normal summer day outside though the bright, cheerful light was wasted on the dazed and shaken former-hostages. Ambulances, emergency lights lit up but without the sirens, pulled up as the remaining SWAT teams still in the building gave the 'all clear'. The EMTs jumped from the vehicles and split the friends into two groups, leading them back to the ambulances.

One thing that cheered Greg and Deirdre up as they and Nick were lead forward was the sight of Warrick - still walking and looking no worse than he had when he was taken - being escorted out of the damaged crime lab.

…

A rapping at the monotonously white hospital door made Greg look up from the book he was reading. Deirdre, dressed plainly in jeans and a too big t-shirt, stood at the door, an unhappy smile on her face. Her features were worn, her eyes sad. It gave her a slightly haunted look but he was happy to see her nonetheless.

He knew that she had gone back to work only a few days ago, opting to forego the medical leave that Ecklie would have forced upon her had they not needed help so desperately. As far as Greg had heard from Warrick and Nick, the assistant director had finally given in after a half-hour long argument and had set her under Mia's supervision to help organize the still damaged, extremely backed-up crime lab with it's now mostly compromised evidence. The bags that were already beginning to form under her eyes showed how hard she was working even though both doctors and co-workers were advising her to take it easy.

He sighed and smiled back at her. "Hey," he said in greeting as she walked in and flopped down on the chair beside his bed. "Still that busy?"

Deirdre gave him a dull smirk before answering, "uh… Yeah." Pulling her curls from their confining hair tie, she continued. "Catherine took Lindsay out of school as soon as she got out and - being human and ignoring Ecklie- took two weeks vacation time. She booked a first-class flight for two to Hawaii, got a room in some five star hotel, rented a convertible and left. She told me that she was planning to take Lindsay on a road trip north next year." She sighed. "It's good for her to take some time off for her daughter and all that, and I understand where she's coming from, but why she had to go now, I'll never know."

He snorted lightly in laughter. "So Warrick's in charge then? Nick mentioned that yesterday when he came by."

"Yup, he's kinda jealous about it, though. But he shouldn't be; I heard Ecklie talking about him and he said something about making Nick swing shift supervisor."

"That's good, he deserves it. How's Sara doing?"

"Better," the other tech answered, shrugging a shoulder. "I talked to some of the doctors and they keep going on about how lucky she is, but I keep telling them it's because of her hard head. I don't think I've ever met anyone as stubborn as her."

"I have." Greg told her, and raised his eyebrows when she asked him who.

They were both knew they were forcing the small talk, but it was something they couldn't really help - anything to avoid talking about the reason why Warrick was covering as graveyard supervisor for Catherine, why Catherine had made the sudden decision to take her daughter on such an expensive vacation, why Warrick was going to go on his own vacation with his wife almost as soon as Catherine got back…

It was worth it.

Evidently though, Deirdre - being the normal, tactless Deirdre - felt that they had to talk about it. "Brass' memorial service - it's going to be in two weeks." She told him after a pause in their pointless conversation. "You should be out by then, right?"

Greg nodded, then hesitated before asking, "and umm… What about Grissom's?"

It was best to get it over with, now that they were on the topic.

"His mom wants to wait until everyone's here, to make sure we can all be there." She suddenly found the window by his bed every interesting, even if it only showed the hospital's parking lot.

"That's nice of her," he said, but even as he did so he could hear his voice beginning to crack. It was amazing; even a week later, the fact that four of his co-workers - four people that he was incredibly close with - were dead still shocked him slightly. It was something that was taking a long time to sink in.

"It's hard to believe, isn't it?" The other tech said suddenly, in a quiet and sober voice that was most unlike the voice she usually spoke in.

Greg nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

…

All the memorials, all the eulogies, all the trying not to cry and comforting Dierdre when she did was over. The trials for the three convicts - Brent, Tyler and Ray - who didn't get killed in the slight skirmish that happened when SWAT had gotten into the crime lab were done with, too. The trials were surprisingly short and all three had, predictably, gotten the needle.

For once, though, Greg wasn't thinking about the ordeal that had changed his life drastically.

He was looking a few inches down at Deirdre, who was standing before him, the euphoric smile on her face matched almost perfectly by his own. He took her hand in his own and resisted the need to tell her she was beautiful.

She had obviously spent a great deal of effort on taming her wild hair, and it showed. It was only partially tied back; a few strands were framing her face, adding perfectly to the modest amount of make-up on it. Her dress was just a dress - which was slightly unusual for the occasion - but Greg didn't have the slightest problem with it. It was forest green silk, fitting her so wonderfully that he could have sworn that it had been custom made for her, had he not known better. The garment had been chosen with Sara's help to go with the colour of her hair, eyes and skin, he knew.

The total result of the two women's effort was… stunning.

He was so entranced with the beauty before him that he barely noticed the final words of the white-clad man standing, book in hand, before him and his true love.

"You may now kiss the bride."

THE END

Final Author's Note: Now, I'm not one for corny Hollywood endings, but I couldn't help myself here. I also can't help but saying "THAT'S SO CUTE!" even though I'm not one for that sappy romance crap you see all too often in movies these days.

Many thanks to all everyone who's read this and, of course, an even bigger thank you to those who have actually reviewed…

Sorry for the idiotically long wait for this chapter to get out! I hope it was worth it!

I LOVE YOU ALL! (blows kisses)

XCrimsonxBlackxBloodx

PS. Do you think I should change my name?

PPS. How do you guys feel about a prequel - to find out how Deirdre got to the lab? ( At this point, any ideas you guys might have about it will be hugged, mutilated and mulched, then will find it's way into the story.)