AN: Ooooo the return of intense mortal peril. How I love peril. :D And the return of the clif hanger. Enjoy this chapter:DDD

"Catherine," Catherine heard her voice being called in the hallway. It was a week into school and people had yet to pick up where they left off. Socially and all that. Catherine was still getting invitations to the Back to School Dance. They had yet to pick up on the thing between her and Warrick. So Catherine assumed it was another one of these boys. So she was surprised to see Gil Grissom coming up to her.

"Gil," she said, a little confused. Gil didn't speak to her in school. Catherine wouldn't have minded if her did, but the fact was he didn't. She hardly saw him during school. So she assumed something must have been wrong. This suspicion was increased when she saw a nervous look on his face.

"What's up," she asked.

Gil looked around before talking to her in a low voice. "Um...I heard some of the jocks talking. Basketball players...about your friend Fredy."

Catherine's eyes widened. "What exactly," she pressed him.

Gil bit his lip before taking a piece of folded colored paper from his pocket. He unfolded it and gave it to her. "As far as I know...there's not many of those papers around. But...even one is enough."

Catherine's took the paper from him. It was a typed out notice, like a advertisement or something. Basically it outed Fredy as a gay person. But of course the words the poster used were much more...colorful.

"Oh shit," Catherine breathed. She knew the basketball players would flip, explode. "Gil, thanks. I'll... I'll see you later."

Catherine took off down the hall. It was lunch time, but she hoped to catch Fredy before lunch. She got her wish. Fredy was at his locker.

"Fredy," she said breathlessly. Fredy gave her a concerned look and Catherine handed him the paper. Fredy's eyes traveled over the colored paper and frowned.

"This isn't good," he said. "The basketball players are not going to be happy."

"They started it," Catherine said. Fredy looked at her.

"How'd they find out," Fredy asked her. He actually looked more scared then angry. Like he didn't really care that he was outed, that the entire school would know by the end of the day, but was very scared by this. And knowing this school, Catherine thought he had every right to be scared.

"I don't know," Catherine said honestly, shaking her head. The lunch bell rang but neither moved. "You know it doesn't matter," Catherine told Fredy. "I mean it doesn't change who you are or anything-"

"I know Cath," Fredy said cutting her off. "I don't care if everybody knows. Mostly I was just hiding from my parents. But now...I don't really care. I'm afraid though that this is going to...mess with the heads of some of my teammates. I don't think they'll take it well. And I'm afraid of them," he said the last part softly, like he didn't want anybody else to know his fear.

"I won't let them do anything to you," Catherine said, gripping Fredy's shoulder reassuringly.

Lunch was surprisingly and happily uneventful. Catherine was greatly relieved that no one stood up and shouted out anything crazy about Fredy. She passed the paper around the lunch room table. So there was thick tension around them all.

Catherine heard whispers in the hallway, and over the next few days she knew she wasn't imagining things because the others heard them too. Fredy was getting tense and shaky. And Catherine was worried for him.

She knew eventually the whole thing was going to burst. She knew they were walking on thin ice. Very thin ice. They were walking on very thin ice with hot feet.

She was not disappointed. Things did burst. But not in the way she thought they would. Over the next few days, she saw the way Fredy was treated by the general population of the school. Like a slimy thing under a rock. She hated that. She loathed it. And when things finnaly bust, it was worse then she thought. Much worse

Fredy was walking in front of the school. The others were waiting for him at the ice cream shop down the street. Fredy was held up at school for a moment for an early basketball meeting, even though the season wouldn't start for a few months.

He didn't see the car until it was too late, and even if he had seen it earlier, he wouldn't have been able to move. He thought the car would stop, and out of instance, backed up. If there wasn't a wall behind him, Fredy would've fallen.

The car struck him and would've throw him back, but Fredy had nowhere to go. He hit the wall, and was momentarily stuck between the car and the wall of the school. The car backed up and Fred feel to the ground. He knew a couple of his ribs were probably broken, along with his legs.

He actually held onto his conciseness for longer then he should have. He stayed awake. And it was good, because he was focusing on what he saw, and repeating something to himself over and over in his head.

He finally did faint. The last thing that registered in his mind, was hearing his cell phone ring.

"Damn," Cassy said, hanging up her phone. The Nerd Squad was all sitting in two booths at the ice cream shop.

"He's not picking up," Catherine asked. She had a bad feeling right now. A very bad feeling.

Cassy shook her head. "It couldn't have taken him this long," she complained.

"Shit," Catherine breathed and stood up. They hadn't ordered, as they were waiting on Fredy, so the others followed her. Most of them ha confused looks on their face.

Catherine ran flat out back to the school, all the while praying that her thoughts, he speculations, were wrong.

She started to circle the school and came to a halt at a secluded area of the parking lot. Cassy, who was behind her, actually ran into her when she stopped.

"Catherine! What the hell is going on," cassy started to rant and then stopped when she saw what Catherine was staring at.

"Oh shit," Cassy breathed. Catherine was the first to get "unfrozen" She moved forward quickly, and the others followed after several silent moments.

"Fredy," Catherine said loudly, seeing if he was awake. She knelt down next to him. His knees were mangled and bloody and she could tell that he had broken a couple of his ribs.

"Fredy," she repeated, hoping he would wake up. She was certain he was alive, she was positive.

"Cassy," she heard Sara's voce say, muffled and disoriented...like she was hearing through several feet of water.

"Cassy, call 9-1-1."

Catherine held Fredy's head, the back of which, she suspected, had been wacked against the wall.

She heard Archie barf. But still Catherine didn't take her eyes away from Fredy. Fredy was...no...is her best friend. He in no way deserved this.

She would make whoever did this to him pay. She promised to herself, they wouldn't get out of this in one piece, she would make sure of that.