Chapter 13

Gil opened his eyes slowly, the pain coursed through his body. He looked upwards to many stark white tiles above his head.

"Where am I?" he thought sluggishly.

Without his glasses his eyesight was quite poor anyway, but having endured hours of drifting in and out of consciousness wasn't helping the matter. He had no idea where he was or how he got there.

"Gil?" a soft female voice whispered somewhere in the distance.

His thoughts suddenly became clear and he sat bolt right up in the bed; the mix of sudden movement and the feeling of fresh blood pouring out of his leg was enough to make him slump back against the pillows behind his head. Feeling quite nauseous from his Indiana Jones style leap back into consciousness, the most he could manage was to croak Sara's name repeatedly.

"Gil? It's me Catherine. You're ok now. You're in the hospital" Catherine Willows the strawberry blonde CSI had been next to Gil's bed since they transported him to hospital earlier that morning. She had received a call from Brass telling her that Sara had been kidnapped and Gil had been shot. She had called the childminder straight away and come straight to the hospital where she met Gil as they brought him in from the ambulance. She had been sitting next to his bed ever since waiting for him to come round.

When she heard Gil repeating Sara's name she felt tears prickling her eyelids, they were all feeling the strain of not knowing where she was or what was happening. She knew however, that Gil was close to Sara both on a professional and emotional level, and because of this she knew how it must be eating him up that he couldn't protect her.

He cared about his team as he would have for his own children, had he ever taken time out from his scientific life to settle down and have some.

"We haven't heard anything yet Gil, I don't know what is going on", Catherine said meekly as if she knew what he wanted to ask her the most. She looked at him intently, not really knowing what to say next, wishing that she had more information to give him. He looked old and worn out, nothing like the strong, decisive leader that they knew.

Gil opened his eyes once more and tried to concentrate hard on the words he was about to say.

"She……is…alive." he finally managed with considerable effort.

"Gil, we don't know that for sure", Catherine said softly yet determinately.

"I know Catherine", Gil continued a little louder and a little stronger this time.

Catherine wasn't sure what to do, she knew from her training to be direct in these situations, you shouldn't lead someone to believe something that may not be true. It was always tougher to apply training when it was your own boss that needed the strong and firm treatment. Still, she couldn't allow him to think that Sara was definitely alive when they couldn't confirm or deny it either way.

"Gil," she started softly, sighing heavily as her head tried to work out which words were best to use in this delicate, emotionally charged situation. "We can't be sure that Sara is still alive, you know that. We have to wait until we get confirmation from Brass", she continued bravely.

"I know" Gil said a second time. "And I will tell you how I know", he said as he remained with his eyes closed and his voice at the same just audible level.

"The reason I know Catherine is because if Sara's heart had stopped beating then so would mine", and with this he opened his eyes, shifted slightly and looked straight into Catherine's eyes. He continued, "she is my lifeline Cath, my heartbeat, my reason for being. So you see, if she was no longer alive, I too would be dead Catherine, and that's how I know she is still here, still holding on, still fighting the good fight," he finished quietly with one of his trademark enigmatic half-smiles, although behind the smile there was genuine fear and anguish in his eyes.

"Wow, I had no idea", Catherine said trying desperately to take in all that Gil had just uttered.

"Up until recently I had no idea either Cath, and this episode has done nothing but re-inforce my feelings and strengthen my love for her."

Catherine had never heard Gil use the word love in anything except the context of insects and his classical music collection, certainly this was the first time where he had described love in relation to a human being. It was strange but yet strangely nice at the same time. The tenderness in which he spoke about Sara left Catherine with no doubt in her mind that this was the real deal. The otherwise often emotionally-stilted Gil Grissom was in love. "There's hope for us all" she thought sarcastically.

Her thoughts turned to Sara, did she know about Gil's feelings? Would she ever get the chance to hear the poignant, evocative words of love come from Gil's lips? "Would she die not knowing how the team and particularly her boss really felt about her?

"Jesus, bring her home safely", Catherine prayed silently.

"It will be okay Gil, Sara is a fighter, she will be able to get through this. Besides, Brass, Nick and Warrick are on the case, you know they are three of the best in this business, they won't leave a stone unturned until they have found her."

"I have complete faith in them Cath, but the competency of the team isn't what needs to be worried about right now. Sara is in the hands of a psycho who was one of us. Dave Phillips has had the same training as you guys, he knows the strengths and weaknesses of the team. He knows what moves we will make and he will have plotted it out so he is three steps ahead of us at each step. It will be more difficult than we imagine."

"Dave Phillips?" Catherine asked incredulously, her voice rising to a panicked shriek.

"Surely, ye knew?" Gil asked growing more anxious.

"No-one mentioned it to me Gil, I don't think the guys knew who had taken Sara. I gotta ring Brass", she said and with that grabbed her cell and headed for the hospital car-park.

Within seconds she had flipped open her phone and dialled Brass' number.

"Brass"

"It's Dave Phillips, that's who has Sara", Catherine said quickly.

"Woah, calm down Cath, who did you say?"

"Dave Phillips, the ex CSI lab technician", Catherine explained.

"Anything else we need to know about this guy?"

"Yeah, when he worked in the lab he had a crush on Sara and we used to tease him for it. After a pause she continued "Well at least we know his primary motive".

"Jeez bet you didn't realise he would come back and get his revenge huh?" Brass said lightly.

"Let's just hope he hasn't time to serve that particular dish cold", Catherine said hanging up the phone.