Disclaimer: I own nothing. Suing me is pointless.
Standing in the middle of the living room stood Catherine and Sara, holding on to one another tightly as they cried tears of relief, giving comfort to one another after their harrowing ordeal. Sara's hair was wet and soaking through Catherine's shirt, while Catherine herself had streams of mascara running down her face. Catherine's arm was hanging limply by her side at an odd angle, her face was bruised and her lip busted open and bleeding slightly. Neither woman noticed the men in the doorway at first.
Greg broke the silence. "What? Sara? Catherine? Where have you been Sara? Where's Grissom? What happened?"
Nick and Warrick rushed forward to the women as they broke from one another's embrace, Warrick going to Catherine and taking her injured arm in his hand as he looked over her obvious injury. Nick noticed that Sara was having trouble standing on her own accord, so he walked her back towards the sofa and sat her down carefully.
"Calm down and tell us what happened if you could; Catherine, I think you broke your arm" Warrick quietly stated.
"If her arm's broken we should probably take her to the emergency room, and I think Sara just might have been drugged, she's having trouble holding her head up." Nick looked over his friend with a mixture of confusion and concern.
"Can we just get out of here? I have a feeling that Sara would be really happy to never step foot in this townhouse ever again, so let's just, I don't want to be here anymore either. I don't know why she's so groggy or what's wrong with her. She was like this when I found her outside the bathroom upstairs. Grissom was wrapping her in a bathrobe when I found her." Catherine glanced up the stairs before heading toward the front door with Warrick.
"Wait, why was Grissom, what the, a bathrobe? This doesn't make any sense," Greg said in disbelief, the surreal situation trying to make sort itself out in his head as he helped Nick get Sara out to the car.
"We're ok now Greg, that's what really matters. I believe, and when Sara fully comes around she can verify what was really going on, but I think Grissom kidnapped Sara and had her in his basement. I didn't really stop to ask him what his particular plans were before I whacked him over the head with one of his insect displays from the wall. I, I think I might have killed him." Catherine's eyes started tearing again as the events of the day began replaying in her head, her eyes going wide and her face going pale. "Oh my god, I killed my friend. All the things he did for me, and I killed him. What have I done?" Warrick wrapped his arms around his friend, trying to give her the comfort she needed while being mindful of her arm.
"Well, it's definitely a crime scene now; I'll call Brass and wait here while you guys take them to the hospital to get checked out." Greg pulled out his cell phone and started dialing the familiar number, "go on, go on already, but make sure you keep me informed."
"You sure about that Greg" Warrick asked as the young CSI nodded, "then I'll make sure you are updated as soon as we know something."
"Yeah, I'm the rookie, comparatively speaking, so the guys with seniority get to escort the ladies to the hospital. Take care of them. I've already lost Sara once this week; I don't want to lose her again." Greg forced a strained smile on his face, trying to stay optimistic in the wake of the terror Sara and Catherine must have experienced. He could tell Catherine was going into shock, and Sara looked almost as coherent as an extra in a zombie movie. He knew that more probably happened than she was telling; you don't break your arm hitting someone over the head and it certainly doesn't bust open your lip.
Nick looked over at the young man and nodded appreciatively in his direction as he eased Sara into the back of the SUV and fastened her in with the safety belt. He knew Greg would have preferred to be with them as they took their friends in to get checked over, and a feeling of pride washed over him. Their little lab rat was growing up.
Greg watched as they took off, and gave them a slight wave as they disappeared down the street. Looking back to the phone, he hit send.
"Brass, we got a problem over here. Found Catherine with a broken arm and Sara drugged and barely conscious at Grissom's townhouse. You know where it is? Ok, I'll be waiting here for you. Oh, and Catherine said Grissom is dead, just so you're prepared."
Greg walked back inside the townhouse as he waited for Brass to bring in the cavalry. Surprisingly, the living room showed no sign of a struggle besides a few jostled framed insect displays. He looked down the hall toward the kitchen and spotted Catherine's cell phone laying next to the breakfast bar. As he bent down to pick it up and end the call, he felt someone behind him. He looked up in time to see Grissom standing over him.
"Uh, hi Grissom, uhm, how are you doing?" Greg straightened up quickly in his surprise.
"Did you take her?" Grissom growled at Greg, ""I said, did you take her? She's mine, and you know it."
"Take who? I don't know what you're talking about." Greg backed around to the other side of the counter, seeing his boss in an obviously disturbed state of mind.
"Greg, Greg, Greg. I thought you were a little more appreciative of all the things I have done for you. I got you out of the lab and into the field, even though you didn't have the proper training and there were way more experienced applicants out there. I took you under my wing. I tolerated your antics. And this is how you repay me? You take what is mine and go through my house like you own it?" Grissom walked closer to the counter and rummaged through a drawer.
"Uh, Grissom, sorry, I didn't know it was yours." Greg backed into the far wall of the kitchen, trying to think fast as to how to get out of the situation.
"Good thing I didn't toss all the ether, I had a feeling I'd need it." Grissom said as he quickly pulled something out of the drawer and rushed towards Greg. Before he knew it, Greg was on the floor, unconscious.
Brass and Officer McDaniel approached the front of the townhouse with trepidation, uncertain as to what they would find. After stepping over the threshold, they heard a slight moaning coming from the direction of the kitchen, and saw Greg trying to sit up on the floor, rubbing his head.
"What happened Greg?" Brass came towards the young man, the concern evident in his eyes as he took in the scene.
Greg gave the detective a quick rundown of the events as he knew them, and finished with telling him about Grissom pulling something from a drawer and barreling towards him right before he blacked out.
"So where is Grissom now? McDaniel, go check the rest of the house, I'll take the basement here." Brass drew his gun as he cautiously made his way down the stairs in the basement. He was astounded by the setup he saw in the middle of the floor, the cage and the chain, but he found no evidence of the man hiding in any of the corners of the room. There were simply no real hiding places in here, just one open room.
"Hey Brass, you better come up here and look at this." Office McDaniel called down to the detective. "No sign of Dr. Grissom, and I figured we would find a room full of bugs, but this is, uhm, wow."
Greg managed to shake the cobwebs from his head long enough to follow Brass up the stairs where McDaniel was waiting outside the second door on the right side of the hallway.
"I was just checking in the rooms when I saw this." McDaniel opened the door to the room. "I figured you wouldn't believe me unless you saw it for yourself."
Greg and Brass looked in the room, their mouths simultaneously dropping open. There were the expected aquariums filled with hissing cockroaches, an ant farm, and a corner of the room netted off with mosquito netting and filled with butterflies flitting around some potted plants. But what was really disconcerting was the corner opposite the butterflies.
A collage of photos surrounded a large picture of the same butterflies that were in the netting, depicting what was labeled as the "Sara Longwing (Heliconius sara)". The photos were all of Sara, and some looked rather old. A photo of her graduation from Harvard, one of a much younger Grissom with his arm around Sara in front of the Golden Gate Bridge, and there was even an old newspaper clipping showing a very young Sara standing in front of a house staring blankly at a swarm of police cars. A few shots of her with Nick and Warrick, one of her with Greg in a swami hat, but most of them were obviously snapped at different crime scenes. Shots of Sara stooped over a body, one here and there of her dusting something for prints, and a rather disturbing photo featuring her and a man whose face had been scratched out of the picture.
Brass turned to Officer McDaniel. "Do we have any idea where he is?"
"No, nothing evident so far. The car is still in the garage and I checked all the rooms up here. He couldn't have gotten far on foot; it didn't take us that long to get here."
"Don't underestimate the man, McDaniel."
"Wait, was Catherine's car out front?" Greg looked at the men as they shook their head. "I bet he took Catherine's car then. Her purse was laying on the kitchen counter when I first walked back there, and they left in the Tahoe."
"I'll put out an APB for her car. Shit. I never would have thought this of him. And to think, I trusted him with my lifeā¦" Brass shook his head in disbelief at the events unfolding around him. "I'll call Ecklie and have him send out a team from the day shift to go through all this. Greg, as soon as some backup gets here, I'll take you over to the hospital and check on Sara and Catherine after we get you checked out"
As the following weeks went by, things slowly returned to normal. Catherine had her arm set and was restricted to the lab for a while, and Sara put her life back together. She did have to buy a new car, but she was able to straighten everything else out with a few phone calls. Greg told Sara about Brian's reaction, and though she was disappointed, she was a little relieved to find out now rather than after the wedding what kind of man he really was.
Catherine and Sara forged a strong friendship as they supported one another in the wake of the incident. The guys kept a close eye on Sara, both taking turns staking out her apartment after she returned home. The guys from the lab also took turns, even Hodges. After a while, she shared an apartment with Nick, living together as roommates, as after everything that had happened to each of them they realized they didn't want to live alone anymore. Nick was relieved, both because he wouldn't have to worry about Grissom taking Sara as much if he was there and because it made him feel safe knowing there was someone else around. But he wasn't going to tell anyone that.
Greg was able to do the ultimate "I told you so" dance in the break room after everything was settled. Everyone laughed at him, thankful to have some levity.
Catherine's car was discovered near the Mexican border a few days later. Grissom was never heard from again.
