A/N: Thanks for all the reviews, guys:P
Catherine looked down at Sara in panic. She couldn't have fallen back asleep, she must've passed out. Catherine looked up only in time to see her tired daughter standing in the hallway of her home, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and yawning. "Mom, what's going on?" Lindsey asked. "Why is Sara here?"
Catherine did not want her daughter to panic, but she needed to get Sara out of there and to a hospital quickly. "Lindsey, I want you to get the phone and call Grandma! Tell her to come pick you up!" Catherine said. Looking down at the coffee table, she noted her cell phone lying face-down. Throwing it open, she dialed in 9-1-1.
"9-1-1, what's your emergency?" the operator on the other end of the phone asked.
Catherine quickly explained to the woman on the other end of the phone the situation and gave her her address.
"Thank you, an ambulance is being sent," the woman said before hanging up.
Catherine shoved her phone in her pocket and looked back at Sara, slowly setting her back down on the couch. Her eyes were closed and the only indication that she was alive was the slow, steady rise and fall of her chest.
"Sara, wake up honey," Catherine told her, putting a hand on her forehead and rubbing it softly. "Sara, come on," Catherine said, kneeling down beside her. Sara's eyes stayed close and she made no movements. Catherine, her breathing becoming more rapid, turned to see Lindsey running to her.
"Mom, Grandma's coming, but she wants to know why.." she said, holding the cordless phone in her hand.
Catherine sighed in annoyance, taking the phone from her daughter. "What is it, Mom?" she asked. "No, Lindsey's fine. Yes, I'm okay too. What? No I do not have a man over here! It's two in the morning, for god's sake! No! Just come and get Lindsey and take her to school later! I'll need you to pick her up too, I don't know how long I'll be gone. Bye," Catherine said, slamming the phone down on the table.
Lindsey watched in shock as her mother yelled at her own mother and then slammed the phone down. Walking over to her, Lindsey asked, "Mom, what's happening? Where are you going?"
Catherine turned to her daughter. "Everything's okay, Linds, I just need to get Sara to a hospital," she said, looking back down at her friend.
"Hospital?" Lindsey asked. "Why? Is she okay?" she asked, her little face crinkling in a frown, her eyebrows drooping.
"Yes, she's okay, Lindsey, everything's going to be okay," Catherine said as she heard the sirens of the ambulance outside. She ran to the front door when the EMTs knocked and quickly let them in.
"But Mom--" Lindsey said.
"Lindsey I can't talk right now!" Catherine said quickly, running to show the EMTs where Sara was. Lindsey stayed in the entryway, trying to get a straight answer from her mother. Catherine led the EMTs into the living room and they slowly lifted Sara onto a stretcher, covering her in a white hospital issue blanket and running back out the door.
"Mom!" Lindsey yelled, finally stopping Catherine when she got to the door.
"Be good for Grandma, Lindsey," Catherine said, kneeling down in front of her daughter and kissing her forehead. "Don't fight with her and go to her house after school and do your homework," Catherine told her, running outside. Lindsey followed her, trailing right behind her as she made her way to the ambulance.
"Mom!" Lindsey yelled. She still had no idea what was going on or why Sara had to go to the hospital in the first place.
Catherine jumped inside the ambulance, but poked her head out one more time before the doors closed. "Don't fight with that boy at school!" she yelled before the doors slammed and the ambulance drove off.
Catherine's mother drove up to the house and stopped the car. Throwing her door open, she ran to Lindsey, watching as the ambulance drove off. "Lindsey, what's going on?" she asked, kneeling down in front of her and putting her hands on her shoulders.
"I don't know, Grandma," Lindsey told her.
Catherine's mother sighed, shaking her head. "Catherine, what are you up to now?" she said under her breath as she lowered her head.
Inside the ambulance, the EMTs were working hard to try and find out what was wrong with her. "Vitals are stable," one of them said. Another one of them nodded and started talking. All Catherine heard was 'possible trauma' and 'stitches', as she looked back and forth from each EMT to the other to try and find out what was wrong. Looking down at Sara, she held her friend's hand tightly as they arrived at the hospital and the ambulance doors were thrown open.
"Maam, we're going to need to take her inside," one of the EMTs told her. Catherine just nodded slowly as Sara was jerked away from her and their hands were seperated. Catherine jumped out after the EMTs and followed them inside, running right beside the stretcher they held Sara on. To her surprise, the EMTs let Catherine come into the emergency room with them and they quickly led Sara into a room, laying her down on a white hospital bed.
"Alright, let's get a suture kit in here," one of them said. Catherine had taken a seat in a chair next to Sara's bed and watched as a tiny woman ran off and came back in record time with the white suture kit. The male EMT who had ordered the kit seemed to be in command, and he threw it open. "Get some gauzes and alcohol," he told the tiny woman and she ran to the sink, reaching in the drawers to retrieve the items. The EMT took the items and dabbed some alcohol onto a cotton ball, rubbing it against Sara's forehead to clean a gash Catherine had not seen before.
The pain from the alcohol made Sara wince as she started to wake up. Catherine sighed softly in relief, at least she was coming to. Catherine squeezed her hand tightly as she continued to wake up.
The male EMT set the bloodied cotton ball down and got a fresh gauze, drying the wound. He set the gauzes down and went back to the suture kit. As he was about to start her stitches, Sara's eyes popped open, only to discover the tall male figure hovering above her with his hands reaching for her. Sara screamed, her legs kicking at the people standing around her bed as she shut her eyes tightly, her head shaking back and forth quickly.
The male EMT was caught off-guard and for a moment he turned to Catherine for clarification. Before Catherine could speak, Sara's thrashing increased, and one of her arms ran into a tray set down on the table near her, knocking down various tools to treat her injuries, all of them falling to the floor with a loud 'clank'. "I need some help!" the EMT yelled at the others in the room, who just stared at the scene in front of them.
The EMT grabbed both of Sara's arms, holding them to her sides. This only made her fight against them harder, and three other people in the room held down her legs. "Can we get a sedative?" the EMT holding her arms down asked. One of them ran out and came back in with a syringe, filling it with a clear liquid. They handed it the other EMT and he took it, tapping the needle.
Catherine watched in horror as her friend was injected with the clear liquid sedative and her thrashing started to subside. Sara's screams died down as the liquid entered her body her body shook, both in fear and exhaustion. Whispering to herself, her death grip on Catherine's hand grew weaker and weaker as the sedative started to take effect, until she finally grew limp, lying on the bed, sweat dripping down her face.
The EMTs in the room were exhausted, panting and looking at one another. "Alright, let's get another suture kit," the male EMT from before said. Soon it was only two people (not including Sara and Catherine) standing in the room, and they finally got to work on the stitches. Six stitches were put in the gash on Sara's forehead. The suture kit was then taken away and they got to work on her other injuries. After dressing some minor injuries, the male EMT turned to their assitant in the room. "We're going to need someone to come in and process her."
Catherine spoke up. "E-Excuse me, I'm from the Catherine Willows, I'm from the Crime Lab...I can do it," Catherine said quietly.
The EMT turned and looked at her. He nodded slowly. "Alright." He walked out, as did his assistant, and came back in with the necessary supplies she would need for processing her friend.
"Thank you.." Catherine said quietly. Thank you? Thank you for what? Truly, Catherine did not know why she just thanked some guy in a hospital for handing her a sexual assault kit. Sighing deeply, she over at Sara as she walked to the sink, slipping on a pair of latex gloves to get back into full-CSI mode. Catherine was now slapping herself in the face for letting her take a bath. She didn't think about that before- she saw how hard Sara was scrubbing, and not only that, but the water could've taken away some potential evidence.
Catherine walked over to her friend and pulled her chair closer to the bed as she slowly grabbed her hand and scraped under her fingernails. Not much to her surprise, Catherine lifted many skin cells from underneath her friend's nails. "That's my girl," Catherine said quietly. She knew Sara well enough to know that she was not going to let anything happen to herself without first putting up a fight. Not only was it her instinct, but she was a CSI, and she knew that physical evidence meant a lot.
Catherine finished scraping under her fingernails and grabbed a swab, opening her mouth and getting a saliva sample. Funny, Catherine thought- saliva was the only thing she knew that really got to her friend. She could process the contents of a victim's stomach or search through seven-month-old human soup without trouble, but saliva was the only thing that she knew got to her.
Catherine put the swab in its box, grabbing the black marker and writing on the white box as she set it back down on the table containing the rest of the tools for the examination. She grabbed some more swabs and ran them over her wrists, though she wasn't sure what would come up after the bath, and set them back in their rightful places when she was finished. She grabbed a comb and combed out her hair, finding only a few small fibers here and there. Finishing that up, she winced as she determined what the last part of the exam was. Walking to the foot of the bed, she turned to the door and opened it, looking outside. She wasn't going to be able to do this. Not her friend. She couldn't. Walking outside, she asked for a female nurse to come in and finish the rest. Catherine went to the elevators and went downstairs to the cafeteria to get a cup of coffee. She needed to clear her mind.
After getting a cup of coffee, Catherine sat down at a table in the hospital cafeteria, setting her steaming styrofoam cup down in front of her. With a deep sigh, she took her cell phone out of her pocket. Running her fingers over the buttons, she got up and walked outside. She dialed Grissom's number first.
"Grissom," the voice on the other end of the phone said.
Catherine sighed deeply, looking up at the early morning sky with a hand running through her hair. "Gil, it's Catherine. You guys need to come to Desert Palms. It's Sara."