Disclaimer: The Pact is Picault's, Romeo and Juliet is Shakespeare's, and CSI is Bruckheimer's.

A/N: I seriously need to spend some Starbucks Saturdays on this thing, otherwise it won't get done. Nerwen, Tinuviel, I miss you guys so much! Come back to visit sometime!


The body says what the words cannot.
- Martha Graham


8:52 am.

"That was quick," Jenna said dryly, "Anyone would have thought you were waiting for a page from the morgue."

"Well, we," Nick shrugged, gesturing to himself and Val, "thought that our case didn't have high enough priority. Grissom said Mr Hanwood wouldn't get processed until the body of Emily was."

The coroner shrugged helplessly. "Day Shift has backlogged the place with all their cases."

"The multiple multiples?" Val raised an eyebrow, but there was no humour in her tone.

"Yeah," Jenna nodded, "So many bodies, so little time. And we're running out of room in here." She led the two CSI's over to a body draped with a white sheet. "So as the only coroner in the room - aside from David over there," she gestured to the bespectacled CSI cutting open one of the corpses with gusto. Nick frowned slightly, but let it slide. He loves his work, he thought. "I'm calling the shots," Jenna continued, "And I say that this body has to be processed and sent out of here ASAP, or faster."

She pulled back the sheet. Val looked away.

"My thoughts exactly," Jenna commented dryly. "Not a pretty sight. This is what happens when about 170 pounds of human being meets the pavement at high speed. Head-first."

"Do I even have to ask cause of death?" Nick said, glancing at Val. The red-head gave him a wry look.

Jenna ignored the exchange. "You should. It's pretty unusual for a suicide jumper."

"What?" Nick frowned. Val did the same, but she went around the other side of the body, and stood next to Dr Williams.

The coroner pointed to the man's head and neck - or what was left of it. "Cause of death was blunt force trauma. Cracked the skull and snapped the neck. Your Joe Hanwood died instantly."

"So how does that make this an unusual suicide?" Nick frowned.

Jenna pointed to the man's stomach, cut open not by the fall but with the precision of a surgeon's instruments. "Stomach contents."

Val frowned, and peered into the bloody mass of the man's organs. "I don't see a stomach in there…"

"Course not," Jenna said, grinning, "Because it's in here." She held up a silver bowl. "Careful," she warned, passing it to Val, "Don't spill it."

"Thanks," Val said, though whether she was sarcastic or thankful, Nick couldn't tell. Val held the bowl over the body, so that Nick could also see what was left of the man's last meal.

"I'm going to guess that that was room service," Val said, disgusted. "And from last night, judging by the rate of decomposition."

Nick frowned playfully at Val. "Decomposition? In a stomach?"

Val pulled a face. "Have you got a better word for it?"

"How about 'digestion'?"

Jenna pulled a wry smile. "Are you two enjoying your conversation over dinner?"

"Ha. You're dead funny, doc." Val rolled her eyes and managed to look faintly disgusted.

Nick pulled a face, then peered closer into the bowl. "What are those white things?" Nick asked, taking the bowl from Val and pointing out the small capsules.

"I sent it to Trace," Jenna said, readying her tools for yet another autopsy, "And the results came back in record time. Valium, sodium thiopental and ethchlorvynol."

Val's head snapped up. "That's a lot of sedatives for one person to be taking." She paused, frowning thoughtfully "Ethchlorvynol isn't exactly a sedative of choice - it's usually given out as a last resort by doctors if a patient is allergic to other sedatives. The negative effects of ethchlorvynol outweigh its positives by a long shot." Val rattled off a list of side effects. Nick blinked - when Sara or someone did something like that, it sounded like they were quoting a textbook. Val did it with the causal ease of a professional. Nick picked up the words 'nausea', 'skin rashes', 'fever', and 'hallucinations', among other things.

Note to self, Nick decided, Don't use ethchlorvynol.

Jenna frowned, perplexed. "I was just about to say that - or, at least, something along those lines. How do you know about it?"

Val shrugged. "I worked in the medical field for a while." She handed Jenna the bowl of stomach contents. "So, cause of death is blunt force trauma from landing on the pavement, right?"

Jenna nodded. "Without a doubt."

"Could the hallucinatory effects of ethchlorvynol made him jump from the window?" Nick asked, trying to redeem himself.

"I don't think so, Nick." Jenna raised an eyebrow. "I doubt the man would have been able to even move." The coroner shook her head, then looked up at Val. "David's already taken swabs, samples and everything you guys need from this corpse." She handed them a box full of evidence samples. "You'll have to take them to Trace, Tox and DNA yourself, but we did most of the work for you."

"Thanks," Nick said, taking the box. "We'll get on it." Val smiled at him, as if still teasing him for being a gentleman.

"Anytime," Jenna said, waving them away.

"So… you worked in the medical field?" Nick struck up a conversation as he and Val left the morgue. "What as?"

"Surgeon."

Nick stopped in his tracks. "What?"

Val turned back to look at him, and tucked a wayward strand of red hair behind one ear. "I was a surgeon. Not a head surgeon, mind you. Assisting." She walked on.

Nick got over his momentary shock and continued walking, keeping pace with Val. "A surgeon. So, you have diplomas and degrees galore in your room?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"But you're a CSI now?" Nick frowned good-naturedly. "Why? It can't be about the money - you wouldn't have left a six-figure job just to poke around crime scenes."

"No," Val agreed, "It wasn't about the money. It never was." She raised an eyebrow at Nick. "But it was a seven-figure job."

Nick gaped.

"Are we going to get back to the case, or what?" Val grinned. "You drop those off first, then I'll meet you in AV. I think there's something you need to see."

"And what would that be?"

"Further proof that he didn't jump - he was pushed." She headed through the corridors, peeling off her gloves as she went.

Nick shook his head despairingly, but headed for the labs.


8:52 am.

Emily and Chris' clothes were sprayed with blood. Sara tried not to look at the stains as she dressed two dummies. She tried not to think about how there used to be two kids in these clothes, and how one of them was now dead, a .45 in the brain. She tried not to think about how the survivor must feel. She just tried to look at the clothes.

"There'd be GSR over both of these two," Warrick said, rubbing his chin. "Close range with that kind of gun? It's a pity the hospital cleaned them both up. We would have been able to find out who was holding the gun."

The blood was… horrible. There was so much of it. "If they'd planned to die together, wouldn't they both have been holding the gun?"

Warrick shrugged, but his eyes were dark. "Its cases like these I hate the most."

The collar of the boy's shirt smelt of cologne and blood and there was a smudge of pink gloss on one corner from the girl's lips. "We're not going to get anything conclusive from this. All the bloodstains show is that they were close together when the gun went off."

"The bullet went through her head, and the gun recoiled and took a chunk out of his head."

Sara stepped back from the clothes, burdened and tired. "How could they have wanted to die? They were so young!"

"Maybe that's the reason." Warrick said. He stifled a yawn. "Listen, I'm kinda tired - I'm going to get some coffee. You want some?"

Sara nodded and made a noise. Warrick left the room and ambled through the corridors, leaving Sara with the dressed dummies and questions that could not be answered.

What did you want? Sara mentally asked the dummy dressed in Emily's clothes. What did you want that you couldn't find? What couldn't you solve by living? What made you think that death was the answer?

Her eyes flickered to the 'Chris' dummy. And how could you agree with her?

"The DA thinks that Chris Harte murdered Emily Gold."

Sara turned slowly. Grissom was standing in the doorway, awkwardly tapping a folder in the open palm of his hand, avoiding Sara's eyes. He didn't want to speak to her, not really - but he was making the effort. It was very… un-Grissom.

"Really." Sara nodded. "Well, that's interesting."

"What do you think happened?"

The words were out of Sara's mouth before she could stop them. "Oh, so now you're talking to me? Whatever happened to avoiding…" Grissom looked pained. Sara frantically tried to back-pedal. "Grissom, I didn't mean…"

Grissom just walked away, an inscrutable look on his face but a hurt look in his eyes.

Sara swore softly, and rubbed at her face. She was tired, that was all. She needed a cup of coffee badly. She needed to wake up… and she needed to concentrate on the case at hand. The issue with Grissom would sort itself out in time. They'd go back to ignoring each other, and nothing would change.

It wasn't a very heartening thought.

The 'bodies' of Chris and Emily stood silently in the dim light, saying nothing and revealing even less. Sara walked around the dummies, trying to find something, anything, which could help.

Directional blood flow, spatter patterns, and blank spaces told Sara one thing and one thing only. Chris Harte and Emily Gold had been lying side-by-side, almost on top of each other, when Emily had taken the bullet to the brain.