Disclaimer: Don't own CSI in any way shape or form.

AN: First an apology to any non GSR fans. When I started this little adventure I didn't plan on it being GSR exactly, but it seems to be going that way, so sorry I didn't warn you sooner. Secondly this chapter is short, but I just wanted to get it up while I'm working on the next one which should reveal more about who has Sara and why. I'm just not sure how long it's gonna take so wanted to give you something even if its short. Thanks for the reviews and I hope you continue to enjoy this.

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Chief Coroner Dr. Al Robbins didn't normally come down to this side of the building. Usually the CSIs came to his domain, but today with one of their own on the line he made the long trek from his office to the AV Lab. He hadn't entered the room yet, he could see enough of the screen through the clear walls that he could watch the water creep up the bed. Sara was sitting up in the corner of the bed with her knees drawn up to chin. She was no longer just shivering now it was more like she was shaking from the cold.

Brass walked up to him, Robbins' noted automatically that the strain was showing on the Detective. The pair nodded to each other as they both looked into the lab where Gil was again keeping vigil.

"How's our girl?" Brass had his own theories about the pair, but he had a strict non-interference policy about them. Watching Gil he was worried about the long term impact this case would have on him. Jim had remained silent about the changes Nick's abduction had made on the whole team. Watching some of them with pleasure like Gil trying to reconnect with his team or Sara seeming to get back to normal. Warrick's sudden marriage and Greg's solemness were a little more disconcerting.

"Do we know how cold that water is?" Al began mentally calculating how long Sara could survive, based on her weight, body to fat ratio and possible temperature.

He remembered doing the autopsy on the girl that had looked like Sara and prayed he'd never see Sara lying on one of his cold metal slabs. Robbins had been a Coroner long enough it wasn't hard for him to imagine what Sara's body would look like from the combination of drowning and hypothermia. The gray cast to her skin, the bluish-purple color her lips, blood shot eyes and water in her lungs.

"No, but from what Gil told me it's gotta be pretty cold. Apparently she made a comment something like she would die from hypothermia before she could drown." Brass studied the Doctor, "The bastard isn't giving us as much time to find her is he Doc?"

Al nodded, "Shivering is the body's first defense against hypothermia so we still have plenty of time. But as her core body temperature drops her extremities will go numb. Followed by muscle stiffness, loss of consciousness, and finally cardiac arrest."

Robbins described it all clinically, ignoring the anger that was welling in him at the idea that someone was doing this to Sara. The beautiful, young CSI who had a smile and way of lighting up the room that warmed even the cold morgue. Al could always tell which cases Sara worked on, by David's reaction.

He understood the attraction and crush his young employee had on her. Didn't they all feel that way to some extent or other about her. The men in the lab he noticed seemed to fall into three distinct categories fathers, brothers and would be lovers. He didn't think the same was true for Catherine because the staff recognized that the former stripper would really only fit into same category that all unattainable beautiful women went into.

Sara wasn't like most women in generally, but especially those you met in Las Vegas. She wasn't a classic beauty, so she didn't value her own physical appeal. Her intelligence, humor and appreciation of science geeks were a heady combination to men who'd been overlooked, teased, ridiculed, and deemed unattractive for those characters. Looking at Brass he wondered which one the Detective viewed Sara as, though he suspected that like himself he saw her as a daughter.

"Jim don't give up on her. She's young, healthy and strong."

"Yeah, she's a fighter."

"There's a saying about immersion hypothermia you don't give up them until they're warm and dead. We can't give up on Sara, because she wouldn't give up on us."

Jim nodded "You going in there?" Robbins nodded. "Good. I need to catch up with Cath and the others."

Walking into the lab, Robbins stood next to Gil. He'd known from the very first autopsy with Sara and Gil that the older man didn't have parental feelings for his employee. Then in the next breath he'd seen she felt the exact same way. Watching Gil, watching Sara on the screen was almost heart breaking. Grissom and Sara were both guarded people, but sitting in the dark watching her being slowly taken from him had put a chink in Gil's defenses. Reaching out he squeezed his friends shoulder. "Hey Brass is catching up with the team. I'll keep an eye on her for you, if you want to catch up with the others."

Gil pulled his eyes away from the screen to look at the Coroner. "Just press the mouse button to keep the lights on. I'll be back in a few minutes."

Robbins nodded and started watching the brunette on the screen trying to estimate her pulse and severity of her shaking, while trying not to calculate how long it would take her to die.