A/N:Sorry, I'm still having problems with getting this thing to accept my scene dividers, guess I'll have to use something other than

R2R:

lins: I promise to update if you will too .

Fwe: You that keeping me pinned to the computer can be a bad thing… darn plot bunnies are multiplying every second I sit here! Thanks for being more than just a beta YOU'RE AWESOME!

Scribbledream: Welcome to the madness! As soon as I get a few minutes of 'me time' (maybe when the kids finally fall asleep) I'm going to read your stories! I'm glad you liked McKenna at first, that was what I was trying to achieve. I wanted him to seem like a harmless everyday guy who once you get to know him, you find out he's really, really dangerous! I haven't seen that many of the eps so if I'm off on the characters I really would like to be corrected. Thanks!

SLynn: Thanksfor reading and reviewing, you know I have to say I love your stories too!

xCrimsonxBlackxBloodx: EEEEP! Try not to squeeze me too hard 'cause this one's for you again! 1,000 words (give or take a few) longer than my usual offering. You make my muse HAPPY!

Chapter 8 – Pieces Of Me

Grissom was at his desk working on some of the never-ending paperwork that came with being the shift supervisor when someone knocked on his door. He looked up and frowned when he saw agent Duncan.

"We got off to a bad start and I'd like to apologize." she said. "I can get too focused on my job and forget that I'm dealing with real people who have real feelings."

Grissom inclined his head, indicating that she could come in. "It was not the best of introductions." he admitted.

Jodi sat in the chair across from Grissom, dropping a small white paper bag on his desk. "Peace offering. Do you like popcorn?"

Grissom laughed and shook his head, "Everybody likes popcorn but don't you think that's too little to share?"

"It's jellybeans."

Grissom looked at her over the rim of his glasses, "You asked me if I liked popcorn."

"Fat free, sugar free popcorn flavored jellybeans." She opened the bag and took out several yellow speckled white jellybeans, "All the flavor of popcorn without the annoying hulls. Try it. I promise if you like popcorn you'll like these."

Grissom accepted a handful, carefully looking at them and then smelling them before he put one in his mouth. He didn't chew it.

Jodi laughed, "Scientific to the bone aren't you?"

Grissom chewed and swallowed before answering. "I like to be thorough." His brows rose and he smiled, "It does taste like buttered popcorn."

"So you like them?" She pulled another small bag out of her jacket pocket and popped a couple of jellybeans in her mouth. "Another convert."

Grissom ate a couple more, "Did you learn anything from your interrogations today?"

"Not much from the interrogation, but quite a bit from the questioning." Duncan leaned forward and looked directly at Grissom. "I overstepped my bounds this afternoon and I'm sorry. I should have waited for you to accompany me."

"Apology accepted."

"Would it be possible to have a meeting with your staff where we could compare notes?"

Grissom took his time answering her, "After shift if we don't take too long."

"I know you all want to go to the hospital so I'll try to keep it short."

"I'll let everyone know."

Grissom called his team together and told them about Agent Duncan. Catherine and Nick seemed to take the FBI's intrusion personally but Sara and Warrick were enthusiastic about meeting the profiler.

They took seats around the trace table, Grissom was impatient to get things started. "So McKenna chose his victims randomly?" he asked.

"The first two were specific targets." Agent Duncan opened her briefcase, "We believe that they in his mind represented his parents. The others were taken as the opportunity presented. That's why he's been so hard to catch. Most serial have specific targets in mind: prostitutes, drug addicts, young women or young men. McKenna picked from any age group, any gender. He didn't care who they were just that he could get them without being seen. McKenna fits the profile of a

serial killer in some aspects- he's organized and somewhat of a loner…"

"That describes half the people in this room." Sara mumbled.

A smile quirked the corners of agent Duncan's mouth but she continued, "But he didn't do this for sexual gratification as is the most common motivation for these types of crimes." She passed out a map of the area where McKenna had abducted his victims. "You will note that all of his victims were taken from a four mile radius surrounding his house. He felt comfortable 'hunting' in his own backyard as it were." Another sheet marking the dumpsites was handed out, "Only the first two were discarded within that safety zone. Since McKenna is obsessively clean..."

"You can say that again." Nick interrupted.

Duncan rolled her eyes, "That would account for the fact that the others were dumped at sites over eighteen miles away from his residence."

"Taking out the trash."

"That's a harsh way of putting it, Grissom." Said Catherine.

"In McKenna's mind, yes." Jodi replied, "That was exactly what he was doing."

"So why the paintings?" asked Warrick.

"It is McKenna's way of having control over his environment. When his father murdered his mother and then killed himself, Brad had no control over that or the following eight years of his life. He was told where to go, when to eat, where to sleep. It didn't help that his last foster family's dynamics were so unbalanced."

"Do we know what happened to his foster father?"

"No concrete leads but I feel that Brad most likely had something to do with his disappearance."

"Any leads on the girl that bought McKenna's last 'work of art'?" asked Catherine.

"None." Grissom admitted, "The gallery owner pays more attention to his male customers than to the women so we have a description that could fit half the female population of Los Vegas."

"What about the picture?" asked Nick, "Could we put out a flyer asking the purchaser to come in?"

"We're working on that but I'm not sure how well Greg's going to deal with it."

"It's another portrait of him." Sara said. "Isn't it?"

"Yes."

"So all we have is a nondescript girl out there somewhere with a portrait of someone she doesn't know painted in blood." Warrick shook his head, "I don't see high probability of success on retrieving that

painting."

"Who's to say she doesn't know who it's a portrait of."

"Oh Grissom, now that is just creepy!" said Catherine. "Must you be such a ray of sunshine?"

Jodi cleared her throat, "The hardest part of profiling is dealing with the victims and their families. They want and need answers that sometimes we can't give. There are things that we can do to help them cope but most importantly we should be more aware of the things we say." She handed out another set of papers, "The survivors are afraid, jumpy, nervous and even paranoid. The worst thing you can do is to

patronize them and tell them to 'get over it' or 'stop being such a baby'." She looked around at each one of them, noticing the look exchanged between Warrick and Sara.

"They are vulnerable right now, and the way you treat them right now will make the difference of weather they overcome this and become stronger for it or if they retreat and become shadows of themselves." Jodi continued, "They are aware that they are being hyper sensitive and this can make them lash out at the people around them. Don't take this personally, they are angry with themselves, not with you. If you walk away from that, you're reinforcing the belief that they are now worth less to you and they deserve all the bad things that happen to them."

"No one deserves things like that." said Catherine.

"Don't just tell him that, show Greg that he is still a person worthy of your attention." She looked around the room again, "Include him in what ever you do, he needs to feel wanted and useful. He will need some

time alone but don't let him spend too much time away from other people."

Warrick had been reading the paper she handed out, "Wasn't there was a case in Texas where the victim insisted the perp was still following her around even though he was in prison?"

"Yes, he'd stalked her for several months. She'd complained, reported it to security and everyone kept telling her the guy was harmless and not to worry about it."

"He stabbed her seventeen times," said Sara, "that's not harmless."

"But why did she insist he was still stalking her when he was incarcerated?" asked Nick.

"Sometimes the memories of an attack can be so strong that it feels like it's happening again." Jodi explained, "This woman didn't have a good support network. The people around her blamed themselves for the attack and were ashamed for failing to protect her. She mistook their reluctance to be around her for disgust and she ended up in a psychiatric ward for the next four years."

"What happened to the guy who attacked her?" asked Sara.

"He was given an eight year sentence for assault bargained down to four and he got a year off for good behavior. He was out of prison before she got out of the mental hospital."

"That is so wrong." said Warrick.

"That's reality, folks." Agent Duncan's mouth was a tight line. "We don't like it, we have to work to change it."

"What was your profile of McKenna?" Grissom asked.

"Off." She shook her head. "I had him pegged as highly intelligent, mid thirties to early forties and a holding some sort of professional job."

"He's mildly retarded, self employed and twenty-nine."

"Just goes to prove that you can't fit these people in a mold. It would have taken us years to catch this guy with what little evidence we have. You got him in one day."

"We have a more personal motivation." said Grissom.

After the meeting with Agent Duncan, Nick and Sara headed over to the hospital to see Greg. The others had paperwork to finish up before they met them there.

Finding Greg's room empty and the bed made they went to the nurse's station.

"I'm looking for Greg Sanders, has he been moved to another room?" Sara asked.

The nurse consulted a chart, "No, he left about two hours ago."

"He was released already?"

"He signed out AMA."

Sara closed her eyes and shook her head, "What was he thinking?"

"He's sick of Jell-O?" Nick replied.

Sara punched his shoulder, "Rhetorical question."

"Ow!" Nick rubbed his arm. "Rhetorical reply."

Sara pulled out her phone then put it back when she saw the nurse glaring at her. She shrugged apologetically. "Come on, I'll call Gris when we get outside."

When they got back to the truck Sara dialed Grissom and told him about Greg. She could tell he was angry by his clipped replies.

"Should we go by and check in on him?" Sara asked.

"Not right now," Grissom advised, "let him have a couple of hours to get settled before we all show up on his doorstep."

Grissom hung up, sighing deeply.

Catherine who was passing by, heard him and came into the office, "Something wrong?"

"Greg's gone."

"What?"

Grissom shook his head, "He signed out AMA and went home."

"God Gris don't scare me like that!" she put a hand over her heart, "I thought you meant he …"

"Sorry Catherine, I'm tired." Grissom rested his chin on his hands, elbows on the desk. "I guess I wasn't thinking about how that would sound."

"When did he go home?"

"The nurse told Sara he left about two hours ago."

"I can't believe they let him go in the state he's in."

"He's over eighteen and capable of making decisions about his own health." Grissom sighed.

"Not rational ones obviously." said Catherine, also with a sigh. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to call and ask if he plans on coming in to work tomorrow."

"Are you nuts?"

"Agent Duncan said we need to make him feel wanted and if he's feeling good enough to be home, he's feeling good enough to be at work."

Catherine laughed, "You're an evil man, you know that?"

Grissom smiled, "Strangely enough many people have that opinion of me."

After Catherine left he picked up the phone, dialing Greg's number from memory. It rang nine times before it was picked up.

"Why are you home?" Grissom asked.

"Someone had to feed the fish." Greg replied tonelessly.

"Your friend Rochelle has been doing that."

"Yeah, I know that now."

"Are you feeling up to coming back to work?"

"Now?"

"Tomorrow will be soon enough."

"I don't know."

"We could use your help Greg."

"I'll let you know tomorrow," Greg sounded tired. "Okay?"

"That's fine, we really do need you here if you feel like it." Grissom paused, "Do you mind if we came over tonight?"

"I'm pretty tired."

"Another night then. I can bring dinner."

"Maybe." Greg said reluctantly. "I'll let you know."

The lights were on in the DNA lab when Catherine came in. She stepped inside, smiling when she saw the spiky haired tech at the table. "Hey, I'm glad you're back."

"Didn't think you noticed I was gone."

"Cheap shot but I guess I deserved that." Catherine said. "Sorry seems like a pathetic offering but I am sorry. I just thought maybe you were taking time off, it never occurred to me or anyone else that something

was wrong.

"Forget about it." he said, all the while never looking at her. "It doesn't matter anyway."

"I'm not going to forget about it Greg and it does matter. You matter. I should have gone by or called or something to see if you were alright."

He moved slowly, still careful of the healing wounds. The printer dropped the results page and he picked it up and handed it to her without a word.

Catherine took the page, missing the usual big presentation Greg always put on before giving up his results. She looked closer at him, noting the dark lines under his normally sparkling eyes. "Did you sleep last night?"

"Yeah." Greg went back to the mass spectrometer and loaded it up for another session.

"How long have you been here?"

He didn't turn around. "Couple of hours."

"And that's about how much sleep you got, isn't it?"

"I'm fine."

Catherine hated how apathetic his voice sounded. "Does Grissom know you're here?"

"I haven't seen him." Greg rubbed absently at the injury on his cheek.

Catherine remembered the large white bandage that had covered that area after the lab had exploded. "Stitches itch?"

"A little." He admitted. "Don't you have someplace to be?" He finally looked at her and she could see how exhausted he appeared. "I'm not trying to get rid of you but I have work to do. I don't have time to chit chat." He turned back to the analyzer.

"Greg?" she asked cautiously.

"What?" he said back, sounding close to tears.

"I'm glad you're back with us." She wanted so badly to touch him but she was afraid to hurt him. "I really mean that. You're the best lab tech we have."

He didn't reply. Instead, just pressed the keys to start the machine.

Seconds of silence that seemed to last for hours followed and she decided he wasn't going to respond. She was about to turn to leave when she heard him say something. His voice was so soft that she almost

didn't hear him.

"Thanks."

Grissom was relieved to see Greg's car in the lot when he pulled in. Greg's tone of voice when they'd last spoken hadn't been encouraging.

Catherine met him in the break room.

"He's here but I don't think it's because he wants to be." She explained. "I think the only reason he came in is because it's better than being at home alone. He's like a totally different person."

"Give him time." Grissom poured a cup of coffee. He sniffed the brew and frowned, "How long has this been in here?"

"About six hours I'd guess."

"Greg didn't make any coffee?"

"I haven't seen him set foot out of the lab yet and he's been here almost as long as I have."

"That's not good."

"You try talking to him." Catherine said, exasperated. "All I got were monosyllable replies and he practically told me to get lost and leave him alone."

Grissom dumped the coffee in the sink, "Would you mind starting another pot?" and Catherine's glare he added, "Please?"

She rolled her eyes but took the pot from him, "Alright, but I'm not making a habit out of this."

Grissom found Greg standing in the lab, staring out the glass toward the front desk.

"Why are all the walls in this place made out of glass?" Greg didn't look at Grissom. "Why don't we have normal walls like a normal office? And who the hell thought we need doors on three sides?"

"I have no idea." Grissom joined him in staring down the hallway. "It does seem rather imprudent to have everything glass. Especially the front part of this lab. Anyone coming in can see right through here."

"I'm not stupid." Greg said angrily.

"I didn't say you were." Grissom replied. "I'm just agreeing with you about how impractical the design of this lab is." He took off his glasses and faced Greg. "If it will make you more comfortable, we can have the glass in the front tinted or mirrored. We can move the desks too. This is, after all, your lab and you can set it up however works best for you."

Greg closed his eyes, "Sorry. I don't mean to be a pain in the ass."

"I want you to feel comfortable working here, Greg." He stepped in front of the younger man, hoping Greg would look at him. "If that means spending a little money changing the décor of the lab that's fine."

Greg finally met Grissom's eyes, "You mean that?"

Grissom cocked his head, smiling. "I'll even help you move the desks."