A/N: Don't worry. I didn't forget about Brass. He's alive. He'll be in the last chapters. Probably the next one.
"So, do you plan on staying here until they catch you?" Greg asked, a forced smirk on his face. Hours had passed since Charlie had arrived and he found it ironic that the killer seemed to be in no hurry, pacing around the room every once in a while and engaging in conversation after conversation.
"I plan on staying here for as long as I want to." Charlie's lips pursed. "And I doubt that they'd ever catch me."
Greg rolled his eyes. "Has anyone ever told you that you are way too overconfident?"
Charlie chuckled as he reached for nearest chair and sat on it, seemingly exhausted from all the standing. He watched as Greg tried his best not to doze off.
He found it funny that Greg was going through lengths to gain his trust, when it showed that Greg had no intention of ever trusting him back. The pain reliever he had given the CSI earlier had been spiked with tranquilizers that were usually intended for his victims. The only plausible reason why Greg did not even blink was that he didn't trust him. Not that he could blame the CSI.
"Not overconfident, just honest." He finally replied bluntly. "Aren't you tired?"
The CSI shrugged. "I'm feeling peachy." He paused. "Now tell me more about your scarred life."
"Scarred life, Greg?" Charlie whispered, as he traced an outline of one of Greg's older scars. He saw the CSI flinch at his touch and realized it was one of those scars that came with terrible memories. "What happened to this?"
Annoyance flickered in Greg's eyes. "Lab explosion." He replied bluntly, and Charlie raised a brow in confusion.
"That's impossible that-
"This happened years ago. This isn't the first time I've been in the middle of an explosion in my lifetime." Greg forced mock humor into his voice, his fists clenched in vexation.
Charlie smirked, realizing he was treading on dangerous ground with Greg. Although he could see that the CSI was generally calm and collected there was a darker, more dangerous side to the CSI- one that he had no intention of seeing. "You seem tired. Why not doze off for a little while?"
"Thanks but no. I want to be awake when they catch you."
"Smart ass, are we?"
"Just honest. Aren't you even worried that I know what you look like?" Greg paused. "Unless of course you're going to kill me?"
"I'm not going to kill you, Greg. I thought we talked about that from the start."
The CSI cocked his head. "Then what if I tell?"
"When the time comes, you won't."
"I can't work with this." The representative of the FBI explosives unit finally stated after fumbling with the watch for a few minutes. He saw dismay flash across Sara's features and realized he had just cut whatever thread of hope she was clinging to. Not that he could help it. He really couldn't do anything with a detonator if he didn't know where it was getting its signal from.
"You're kidding, right?" Grissom snapped, suddenly feeling even more frustrated than he had been. "She spends hours here on the verge of death and now after a few minutes of playing with that detonator, you're saying that you can't do anything about it?"
The agent frowned. "Hours. Minutes. Seconds. It doesn't matter. Face it. We're standing in front of a brick wall."
"I can't under-
"Grissom." Sara cut in. Whatever feeling of fear and dismay she had on her face had completely disappeared and the agent wondered if it had anything to do with her being a CSI. He had always wondered what kind of people would work as CSI and he realized that it was the kind of people who hid their feelings well. The kind of people who were like Sara Sidle.
Grissom's head snapped towards the CSI. "What?"
'Maybe you should just go. You really aren't helping.' She saw a look of disbelief on Grissom's face almost immediately. The last thing she had wanted to do was hurt him, but she knew that it was necessary to get him out. He would never agree to her plan, especially since there was a large chance that she wouldn't come out of it alive. Biting her tongue, she continued. 'I'm sorry. It's just that it's getting stuffy in here. I can't think straight.'
Relief spread through Grissom's features, and she couldn't help but realize that she had been wrong all these years. She was not as unimportant to Grissom as she thought she was. Grissom was actually the last person she'd thought that would go through everything he was doing for her.
Sighing at the thought of never seeing him again, she grabbed his hand just before he could make his way up. "Don't go, just yet."
"What do you want, Sara?"
There were tears in her eyes. "Can we drop the whole supervisor-subordinate act for a few seconds? I need a hug so bad right now. I can't." She paused. "I need a friend. Just for a few seconds. Just to help me get through this. Can you do that for me Grissom? Can you just-
Before it could even register to her, Grissom's arms were wrapped around her.
There was a feeling of emptiness when she let him go and she realized, as she saw him make his way up the ladder, that if she did die she was probably going to feel guilty about what she was about to do for the rest of her afterlife.
She turned to face the FBI. "I need your gun and your help."
