Hi everyone...thanks for the great reviews. They are appreciated. I also want to thank those of you well wishers for my daughter...she's much better now. Sorry it took a while, but hopefully you'll enjoy the next chappie.

The four CSIs returned back to the lab with evidence in tow.

Greg and the video surveillance tapes headed over to Archie in the A/V lab.

Warrick had been able to get a few fingerprints and some shoeprints. Though he had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn't get anything from the shoeprints. If he was still a gambling man he might place a bet on the fingerprints.

Catherine and Sara had collected Dustin Schultz's clothes and shoes as well as the pillow the killer had left behind. They had also gotten lucky or rather the killer was stupid and were able to pull a few hairs off of the pillow perhaps it was nothing. However, they were always just able to find something when they thought they had nothing.

They had also reluctantly collected Nick's hospital gown. It was possible that the killer had left a trace of himself on the sick CSI.

The two female CSIs headed towards the morgue to speak with their favorite coroner.

Doctor Albert Robbins was just finishing up the autopsy of Dustin Schultz when Sara and Catherine walked in.

It never mattered what time of day she entered the morgue, Sara always received a chill up her spine. She knew these people couldn't hurt her; in fact most of them had been victims of some sort of violent death. She stopped in her tracks when she realized how close Nick had come to being a lifeless body on the slab in front of them.

Sara knew that this was part of the justice process. In order to catch the assailant or killer it was always a necessity to examine the body whether they were alive or dead. There was a CSI saying: "The body would speak to them." In their case they weren't sure what Dustin's body was going to tell them.

The doctor had been expecting them and was waiting in the examination room. Both women grabbed a blue lab coat and proceeded into the cold room.

"Hey Doc." Catherine started.

"Catherine, Sara." Robbins responded.

"So what do you got for us?" Catherine asked looking down at the body.

She could see a blue tint around his lips. His body was covered with various cuts and bruises. The lights in the room gave off an eerie glow making the bruises more prominent. She could see a discoloration around his right clavicle. She continued to look at the coroner gave his report.

"Our victim died of asphyxia. No surprise there, you can see the blue tint around his mouth. Not too mention the eyewitness account."

"Anything else?"

"Well both the medial malleolus and the lateral malleolus or rather the tibia and fibula were fractured. He may have also been able to fight off his attacker if he didn't have a broken clavicle. That injury is very painful as is any bone that's broken.

"Anything else that might peak our interest?

"I'm sorry but that's all I have for you. Though I can tell you that his injuries were caused from a hit-and-run according to his medical charts."

"Thanks Doc … yea we got a copy of that same chart. We'll be looking into that."

The two CSIs left the examination room and headed back up to find both Greg and Warrick sitting in front of a lab computer running the prints they lifted through AFIS, or the Automated Fingerprint Identification System. The CSIs always tried to run with the prints first, you never knew when you were going to get lucky.

So far they only received hits on two hospital employees who were accounted for and didn't match the description that Nick gave them. The last print came back with NO MATCH FOUND.

"OK guys where are we at?" Catherine asked.

"I dropped the videos off with Archie, he's going to go through them to see if he spots anything out of the ordinary." Greg explained.

"I dropped off the hairs you gave me off in DNA … Wendy should hopefully have something for us shortly. Currently we are trying to locate the owners of these fingerprints." Warrick said.

"So did you get any hits in AFIS?" Sara asked.

"Well we got hits from two employees, but both alibis check out and the third print didn't match anyone in the database."

"Hmm … so that could possibly be our killer." Sara stated.

"Possibly."

"OK follow up with Wendy when you get a chance. I'm going to go and find Brass to see what he's found out about our victim. This guy was a victim of a hit-and-run and something tells me that it wasn't an accident … but a warning. The big mystery is what did Dustin Schultz know that got him killed? Let's meet in the break room in a couple of hours to see where we stand. " Catherine said.

Robert Harris walked into his office at Capral Enterprise and sat down at his desk. He wasn't the least bit worried about the possibility of being identified. In fact this wasn't the first time that he'd been in this position, but unfortunately this was a loose end that he would have to tie up.

He turned on his computer. His computer wasn't like others. Evers had made sure indiscriminately that he had access to most thing people didn't know existed. Evers was not one to play it safe and neither was he.

He had told Evers that he would take care of the witness and get the disk back. He had sent his men out to get information so far the only information he had received was that the witness's name was Nick and that he was a CSI.

How could he use that to his advantage? He wondered if Dustin had given this CSI the disk. In the long run it really didn't matter he was going to get it back and perhaps he could use this CSI to his advantage.

There was a knock at his office door and when he looked over to the entrance one of his men was standing there with a briefcase in hand. The man was in his mid thirties with blond hair and blue eyes. He wore a suit, but you could tell by his posture that he didn't wear suits often.

Normally Harris would have had a fit if this man showed up in the middle of the day. No one knew what kind of working relationship they had and he didn't want people to start asking the wrong types of questions. He had made an exception since Evers was so adamant about getting the disk back. He waved the man in.

"Close the door." Harris ordered.

The man complied and then walked over and placed his briefcase on Harris's desk.

"So what have you got?"

The man, named Carl, looked at Harris with a smile, "Plenty." He said opening his briefcase and fishing out a file.

"I finally have a full name to your witness," He handed Harris the folder and pulled out a duplicate copy of it. "His name is Nick Stokes. He's a Level 3 CSI at the Las Vegas Crime Lab."

Harris took the file from Carl placed it on his desk and opened it. The first thing he saw was a picture of Nick.

"Well you definitely got the right guy, this is him alright. So what else?"

"I've got the names of the CSIs that are working the case. There are five of them."

He reached back into his briefcase and pulled out some photographs and handed them to Harris. The pictures were of the CSIs at various crime scenes working. Carl started with the first picture.

"This is Dr. Gil Grissom. He specializes in entomology. He's the supervisor of the nightshift. Next we have Catherine Willows. She's a single mother of a daughter and here's an interesting bit of information, she's the daughter of Sam Braun, the casino owner."

Harris scowled at that bit of information that was one less person that he could use to his advantage. He had heard of Sam Braun and had dealings with the man in the past. He was one person that Harris didn't want to get involved with.

"Our next CSI is Warrick Brown. He's married and his wife is a nurse that works over at Desert Palms. From what I've been told by my sources in the lab this man and Nick Stokes are best buds."

The scowl on Harris's face disappeared into a smile, "Really that's a good piece of information that we may be able to work to our advantage. Continue please."

Though Carl didn't show it he was relieved that Harris was finding this information useful. He had been working with Harris for close to nine years so he kind of knew what the man expected. He took a deep breath and continued.

"Sara Sidle, single, basically the job is her life and our last CSI is Greg Sanders. He was just promoted to the field as a CSI. He had been working in the DNA lab for the past couple of years."

Harris was very pleased with the information that Carl had provided. He knew all the players involved. Now he had to figure out how to use them.

"Very good Carl. We have a lot of useful information here."

"I'm not finished yet sir."

Harris couldn't hold back a smile. He always thought that Carl was a very useful person to have around and now he absolutely had no doubt.

"Please continue then."

"I have one more piece of information to share with you."

Carl reached one more time into his briefcase and pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to Harris. The title at the top of the paper had Evidence List for case file# 1254-789. Harris read over the evidence that had been logged.

"I don't see the disk on this list." He said looking up from the paper.

"No sir and there could be two possibilities why."

"I'm listening."

"The first possibility would be that the disk is still in Schultz's belongings and the CSIs haven't found it yet or the second possibility is that Nick Stokes has it. We have already searched Schultz's car and we didn't find it there. So I'm going to go out on a limb and say that our best bet would be to go after Stokes. I mean he can identify you anyway and needs to be taken care of."

"I agree with you Carl, but we need to make sure that the police don't get that disk. Here's what I'm planning on doing."

Harris explained the plan to Carl and when he left he had the look of anticipation on his face … and a smile.

Nick had finally been released from the crime scene and allowed to move into a private room. It was the least the hospital could do after his ordeal. His guards were there as well. He was finally starting to feel better. He had a meal and some pain medication.

As he lay there he could still see the killer's face in his mind and tried to watch some television to get the image out of his head. He casually flipped through the channels and finally found a football game on.

He was startled when he heard a knock at the door. Obviously it was someone that was cleared or the guards wouldn't have let them get that far.

"Come in," he hollered.

Grissom peeked his head into the room, "You up for some company?"

"Sure come on in and take a load off."

The salt and pepper haired man made his way into the room carrying a plastic bag. He pulled an ugly green armchair over to Nick's bed and sat down.

Nick looked at him expectantly waiting for Grissom to give him the bag. Instead Grissom just looked at him.

"So how are you feeling…any better?"

"Yea I'm not in so much pain, the drugs are wonderful… I should hopefully be getting out of here tomorrow from what the doctor tells me." Nick said staring at the bag.

"That's great news. So what's your recovery time going to be?"

"Probably a couple of weeks if I can help it."

"Well don't rush it that lab will be fine without you."

"Yea I know, but will I be fine without the lab? I'm going to go crazy. I don't do well just sitting at home. I find myself thinking about things. I'd rather stay busy."

Grissom knew what the man in front of him was talking about. Nick had been honest and upfront with Grissom about his nightmares after his kidnapping.

It was department policy for Nick to see the department shrink after his brush with death. As Nick's supervisor he received reports on Nick's progress. He also made a point to speak with Nick a few times a week to make sure he was doing OK.

Grissom had finally felt that he was where he should be with his CSI. He knew Nick looked up to him, but that's not what made him a good CSI, what made him a good CSI was his ability to feel for the victim. And once Grissom realized that was who Nick was, then their work relationship changed. Nick began to trust Grissom and vice-versa.

Grissom wasn't so hard on the guy anymore, but it wasn't because of everything he had been through, it was because of what he became.

"I understand Nick, but you need to make sure that you recover both physically and emotionally before you come back to work. You've been through an awful ordeal."

Nick wasn't too happy to hear that, but it wasn't unexpected. He knew that as a victim he would have to go through counseling again. Even though he didn't like to admit it counseling did help him.

"Yea I kind of figured as much. How long do you think I'm going to need to go?"

"That's up to you Nick…how do you feel about all of this?"

Nick stared at Grissom he wasn't sure how to answer. Sure he could lie and say that he was fine, but Grissom knew him better than that. He sat there and thought about how he was going to answer that question. Then he spoke.

"Honestly Grissom…I really can't believe all this is happening. It's very frustrating. I don't know how I get myself mixed up in these things. I mean I have the worse luck. Who goes into the hospital for appendicitis and winds up witnessing a murder? Why is it always me? When am I going to catch a break?"

Grissom took a long hard look at Nick he sat there quietly contemplating his answer.

"I'm sorry Nick I don't have any of those answers. The only thing I can tell you are that things happen to us for a reason and I don't think we are given anything that we can't handle in the long run. You have been through more than any of us can even imagine and you have always come out on top and you will get past this too. I know it can get frustrating. I can only imagine how you feel, but know this … you have all of us to help you. Just remember that. "

"Thanks Grissom. You guys have all been great and have always been there for me."

"Just remember it goes both ways." Grissom said with a smile.

"Hey you need me I'm there anytime day or night as long as I'm not in some stinking hospital gown."

"Yes please Nick do not show up in your gown people might start to talk."

"Ha ha very funny."

"I spoke with Dr. Grossman when I came in, he said that you could get out of bed and go for a walk if you are up to it."

"I would, but we get into the whole gown thing again."

"I knew you were going to say that. That's why I brought these."

Grissom finally gave Nick the bag with a smirk. Nick opened the bag and smiled. He pulled out a pair of jogging pants and a Texas A&M University T-shirt.

"I hope you don't mind, but I went by your house and got those. I figured you'd probably be more comfortable and less drafty."

Nick smiled, "Thanks Grissom. Give me a moment to change then let's get out of here for a while."

Nick was able to get out of bed relatively easy and walked over to the bathroom with his IV in tow. A few minutes later he walked out only with the jogging pants on.

"I'll have to ask the nurse for help with the shirt with the IV and all."

"Shall we."

The two men walked over to the door and opened it. Grissom walked out first and explained to the officers that they were going to go for a walk just down the hall, but not out of their sights. The officers allowed Nick to leave the room as long as he stayed with Grissom.

Nick walked out of the room with a smile on his face. He was finally given some liberty even though he still had a guard. He walked slowly and silently next to Grissom as they continued their walk neither man noticed another person watching them.

Well there you have it. I hoped you liked it. Please let me know by submitting a review. Thanks!