A/N: Thanks to everyone that's enjoying the story thus far, hope I don't disappoint. Thankfully, this chapter is a bit longer, but they're being painfully short. Don't worry, they'll get longer as I go. I have tons of ideas. Still looking for betas! Excuse mistakes!

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Sara Sidle entered her crime scene just like she had done hundreds of times; she scanned the room, top to bottom, making small mental notes. Grissom sometimes chastised her about spending too much time surveying and not enough time processing. Now she had all the time in the world to just look things over. It was a moderately run down house, something she expected college kids to live in – sort of rickety, but not falling apart at the seams. The door looked like it had been bashed in several times, yet the splinters still sticking out weren't freshly made. There was something amiss at this crime scene, something that she couldn't quite put her little finger on, but it was there. Her head lifted up to take a note of the top surroundings – worn down stairs, sort of looked like one would collapse if it was stepped on too hard, broken rail at the top of the case, pictures on the path that were crooked.

Finally after five minutes she and the officer made their way into the living room. How odd, Sara thought while squinting her eyes and pursing her lips, nothing is wrong in here. Couch, chairs, lamps, tables…all in perfect order. She turned around again to look at the staircase, then back to the current setting. "If something did happen here, it may've started upstairs. Have you gone up there yet?" she spoke to Officer Melmer without even offering him a glance.

"Nope. I waited until you got here to go in too deeply. I know how you CSIs can be, you'll bite our poor heads off if we contaminate your scene," Steve smirked as she turned to shoot another playful glare in his direction.

"Well thanks for being so thoughtful."

"Anytime."

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"If I get shot at this time I might just go back to my comfortable lab. The only bullets in there are ones from men," Greg cautiously stepped out of Grissom's passenger seat and shrugged on his vest.

"And that's the ones you're more comfortable with, Greg?" Gil Grissom had the absolute ability to make something so horribly childish sound like the most mature thing that has ever graced a pair of lips, this is something Greg did not pick up on.

"Well…yeah. Why would I want real bullets fl-" finally he put the connection together in his head. "You know what? Let's not talk about this."

Grissom smiled coyly as he pulled off his sunglasses and began to the scene, "Good choice." He continued until he reached a fairly angry Jim Brass on the phone. A dark eyebrow rose as he stood behind his old friend and listened in on his part of the conversation. It was not in his nature to eavesdrop, but it was hard not to when Brass had his 'official captain' voice on. "Something wrong?" he said coolly after Jim had hung up rather suddenly on the other party.

"You tell me: what we have here is a body that the coroner has pronounced being dead approximately one month, but it's perfectly preserved."

"…Yeah, something wrong. And this body was involved in a drive-by?" Grissom's brow furrowed as he glanced over to the white sheet lying on the ground. "Why did the coroner pronounce before we got here?"

"Well he didn't actually make it official. He took one look at the body and knew something wasn't right about it. Guess he just did a small autopsy without hurting the evidence?"

"We'll see." Gil turned away from Brass to take a look at the scene. This wasn't right, he knew it, there was a reason that body was there and there was a reason why he was there.

Amongst the crowd of uniformed officers David wasn't hard to pick out. Grissom could tell that the younger coroner was dreading their conversation before it even started; he could see it in his eyes as they got closer into view. Honestly, he knew that he could intimidate David, he just didn't know why. Well, that might've been a little far fetched on his part, Grissom knew he could be shake people. "David, can you tell me why there is a month old dead body at my crime scene?"

"Wish I could," David looked up at him from his paperwork, his eyes half cut off by the wide rims on his glasses. "I can tell you that this DB didn't die from bullet wounds."

"What of then?" this was beginning to get frustrating to the senior CSI. Here he had a routine scene to go through and now this complete mystery. Grissom never had a problem with solving a mystery, he found them a lot like crossword puzzles and he rather enjoyed crossword puzzles, but this was something far more dangerous to him.

"Lacerations to the neck. Well, that's what did her in, but she also had several strange contusions and lacerations on her wrists, ankles, abdomen, and oddly enough spinal column."

"How did you look at her back without contaminating evidence?"

"She was on her side…"

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"Stop! L.V.P.D!" Officer Melmer shouted as loud as he could as he ran in a heated pursuit of a…well, now a suspect. He and Sara had heard the door they left ajar slam shut several minutes after they stepped foot inside the house. Steve drew his gun without thinking and extremely quickly exited the door right behind the man dressed in all black.

Sara, on the other hand, was left standing in the door way hoping that Steve had not put his fingerprint over ones that could've been left by the other man. She kneeled by the door while opening her kit. Gently, she removed the cap from her print powder and tapped a small amount on the brush. Dark brown eyes shifted from the brush to the door as she delicately swiped at the wood, trying to get it to tell her its secrets of sorts.

That is when she heard it. That unmistakable sound of a hammer being pulled back. Sara froze like the corpses she meets all too often. The small brush full of dust in her hand dropped to the floor; her eyes moved down to watch it go, it seemed like it took the damn thing an eternity to fall. As it hit most of the powder went with it, making a shallow pool of white on and around her foot.

"If you move a muscle in your body I will blow your fucking brains out."