a/n: Second to the last chapter

The room seemed a lot more empty than it had been. Opening his eyes, he realized that Charlie had left. He had told himself not to doze off and he did. Charlie was the ticket to everything that had been going on, and all he had to do was entertain the bastard until someone would come in to check on him. Damn. He scolded himself, noticing a piece of paper folded neatly beside him.

Greg,

I hope you had a good rest. You were looking very tired- what with the accident and the tranquilizer I gave you.

Yes. Tranquilizers. The pills I gave you had a bit of my special medicine in them. I expect that you will be furious at me for doing that. I expect that you would think that I lied and did harm you. Let me just say, however, that I never said that I was not going to put you to sleep. I only said I was not going to harm you.

I gave Brass a lot more than I gave you, so I expect that he still must be sleeping. Tell him when he wakes up that I apologize for jumping at him with the injection. I really was going to give him the same pill I gave you, but he had gotten suspicious of me and I panicked.

Your Friend,

Charlie.

He nearly choked at the last two lines. 'Your friend, Charlie.' Who the hell did this guy think he was? Rolling his eyes, he reached for the call button.


With the last turn of the screw, Sara dashed towards the rope ladder reaching for it just a split second before the elevator collapsed. She thought she heard someone yell from underneath it, but she quickly dismissed it, knowing that she had a lot more obstacles to overcome.

Nauseous. She was feeling more nauseous than she'd ever been in entire life. Wrapping the rope tightly around her hand, she theorized that it would be enough to hold her up in case she would fall into unconsciousness.

This theory was never tried though because someone was already reaching for her before she realized it. Despite the darkness, she recognized the voice almost immediately.

"Sara, I thought you died."

Grissom.

"I-" She stopped, realizing that he didn't need an answer. She should have guessed that he would catch the agent's mistake. She never really wanted him to get involved, but she was somewhat thankful that he came for her. She hadn't planned on what she was going to do after the elevator collapsed- she knew there was no way in hell that she could climb the ladder without any help, but it had never really sunk in until she had grabbed hold of it before the elevator collapsed.

Collapsing on the floor in exhaustion as soon as she got out of the shaft, she smiled at her supervisor. "Guess you weren't fooled."

Grissom frowned. "Fooled?"

"The timer." She elaborated. "That agent made the mistake of saying we had 2:40 seconds left. The timer was set to 2:00."

Realization swept across his face. "Wait, the whole shooting incident was a fake?"

"You didn't know? How did you know I was alive?"

He shrugged as he sat down beside her. "I didn't. I just didn't want to leave you."