Disclaimer: Well, here we go again. Better safe than sorry. I'm rather attached to my car after all. I do not own any part of the intellectual property that is CSI or any of its spin-offs - not that they show up here. It all belongs to whomever - who is not me. Sadly.

A/N: This is a Greg/Sara centric fic. There will be relatively little about the others.

Chapter 2

Sara groaned. "What the hell is that stench?"

Trying to shift into a more comfortable position, Sara whimpered as vicious pain surged up her leg, stealing her breath and causing her to convulse in agony. Her flailing hand hit a solid obstruction just above her head. She barely managed to hold in the panicky scream lodged in her throat, nightmare vision of being buried alive racing through her brain.

"Get a grip, Sidle." she admonished herself. "Collect the facts. Evidence never lies. Right, Greg and I were searching a dumpster and he pushed me in."

Sara frowned. "He pushed me in! When I get my hands on the little - he will be so sorry." Even as Sara said it though she was aware that she was only distracting herself. Greg may be a clown sometimes, but he would never do anything to hurt even the smallest hair on her body. And he took his job extremely seriously. Moving carefully, trying to disturb her leg as little as possible, Sara felt her way around gingerly, only too aware what people threw away these days. Sara found the lid in no time and managed to crack it open. As sunlight flooded inside it was accompanied by a whiff of smoke, that had her choking back a cough.

"First things first. Find out what's wrong with my leg." Talking to herself seemed to help, like singing while walking down a darkened hallway. Sliding her hands slowly down the injured leg, Sara tried to find out what exactly the damage was. It wasn't hard to find. A knife had embedded itself in her thigh. This posed a problem. Already her jeans were soaked around the wound and when Sara held her hand up to the sliver of light she saw it was smeared with blood. She had to stop the bleeding, remove the knife and put some form of pressure on the wound.

"Not the cleanest environment for this. I wish Greg were here." Sara blanched. She knew there had to be a good reason why Greg wasn't rushing back to see if she was okay. "Time to think about that later. Have to get mobile first." Sara knew you weren't supposed to just pull a knife back out the way it had come in as that ran the risk of worsening the injury. However she didn't have a choice. Bracing herself against the noxious substances she was lying on, Sara carefully lifted her upper body enough to unzip her vest and rip a strip of cloth off her shirt. At least that had stayed clean. From a pocket in her vest she pulled the roll of duct tape she always had with her. Finally some good advice from her father. It would have to do as a bandage. Skimming her hand beneath her leg, Sara was relieved to find that the knife had not gone through the leg. Gingerly moving her hand, Sara felt for the handle of the knife and in one smooth movement that betrayed none of the agony coursing through her body, removed the knife from its human sheath. Waves of blackness threatened to engulf her. Pushing aside the comfort of oblivion from which she knew she might not wake now that the object clogging the wound had been removed, Sara folded the cloth and applied pressure to the wound, securing her makeshift bandage with the duct tape.

Wiping her forehead and gasping for breath, Sara fell back, not caring what she landed in and let herself be carried away into the darkness. Anything else would have to wait.

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Greg couldn't breathe. His lungs felt like they were on fire and even the slightest movement caused excruciating pain to course through his body, leaving him gasping weakly. On top of that his throat felt like it had that time when someone turned the hotplate on too high and the first sip of coffee had sent him running for the water dispenser to cool his seared throat. Unfortunately there was no water dispenser here.

Where-ever here was. Numbly Greg tried to remember how he had ended up in a doorway of the most noxious alley he had ever been unfortunate enough to turn up in. Surely he hadn't gone on a bender. The last time had been at college and he had vowed to never do it again, Sambuca just not looking the same coming back up the way it went down. There was something, something he was supposed to remember..

"Oh God, Sara!" Greg's senses roared to life as panic surged through him, his memory coming back in a rush that left him staggered. The elation at being sent to his first crime scene. Finding the blood on the window sill. Sara and he in the alley. The explosion. The fireball racing towards them. Pushing Sara into the dumpster. 'Oh, she's gonna hate me for that.' The pain. Blacking out. He had to see if she was okay.

"Get a grip, Greg. Find out what's wrong with you and deal with it. Are you a man or a mouse."

Blinking furiously to clear his wavering vision, he took stock of the situation. The explosion must have thrown him clear of the dumpster and into a doorway. Judging by the amount of still burning debris in the alley that had probably saved his life. Patting frantically at his face for a second, Greg heaved a sigh of relief. 'Hair and eyebrows present, thank God. Wouldn't want my good looks to be burnt to a cinder.'

Moving carefully, Greg searched his body for injuries. Apart from copious bruises and what felt like a sunburn on his face, a very tender area on his right indicated one or possibly more broken ribs, echoed by an equally tender section on his left side, which also felt slightly moist, not boding well for his new no-bleeding intentions. As he tried to stand up, another injury made itself felt rather forcefully. His right ankle was sprained at best, or cracked at worst. He did not think it was broken as he could still move it. Just as it had with Sara, the first thing that sprang to mind was the duct tape in his right pant pocket. 'Thank God for combat trousers. Lots of pockets.' Moving slowly and meticulously, Greg taped his ankle, but found he couldn't do the same to his ribs as it was physically impossible for him to lift his arms above waist level.

Resting for a moment, Greg pulled himself together and up using the wall behind him. If he moved carefully he could put the least amount of pressure on his foot. Logically he knew he should stay in one place and wait for the rescue workers to come, but he had nagging doubts that would look down here and then there was Sara. He had to find out what had happened to her. He stiffened as he saw the dumpster he had shoved Sara into. It was now on the opposite side of the alley, tilted against the wall. The lid was cracked open a couple of centimetres.

Laboriously limping closer; Greg saw that the lid was not deformed and gritting his teeth against the pain opened it completely, only to get the fright of his life.

Inside lay Sara, unmoving, a thick streak of blood emphasising the pallor of her face.

"No!" With trembling hands, Greg felt for the pulse in her throat.

"I can't..", he ruthlessly quenched that thought, then breathed a sigh of relief as a good pulse leapt against his fingertips. Sagging against the dumpster in a vain attempt to alleviate the throbbing in his ankle, Greg gently stroked Sara's face in order to ease her into consciousness. He didn't dare move her before knowing how hurt she was. A cursory look showed that she had a bandage on one thigh, crudely fashioned from some material he hoped she hadn't found where she was lying and duct tape, but he couldn't see what had caused the injury.

A low groan had his eyes zeroing in on her face, Her eyelids fluttered then slowly opened. Focusing on his face, Sara slowly said: "Greg? Guess what."

"What Sara?" Gently he moved his hand to support her head.

The oh so familiar quirky smile appeared on her face. Slowly she lifted her right hand so he could see what had up until know been hidden by her body.

"Found the murder weapon."

"And you just had to do it the hard way, didn't you?" Greg quipped before joining her in slightly hysterical laughter.

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Grissom was disgusted: "Brass is no help at all. The fire department is still putting out the blaze and are unwilling to let anybody search the alleys on what they say might as well be a wild goose chase, until they have cleared the area. It doesn't help that we do not know for sure if they were even in the alley at the time of the explosion. The chief says, he will assume they are just having coffee somewhere."

"That's rubbish and you know it. Sara would never leave a scene until she had found all the evidence there was. You know how anal she gets at a scene." Warrick's indignant face showed only to clearly what he would like to do to the chief of the fire department. "Maybe that's how his guys work, but not ours."

"Chill, man." Nick interjected, wondering if Warrick truly felt that worried or just felt guilty for how he had snapped at their colleague that day. The story had been all over the office under an hour later. "We know that. They don't. They will do their best and until then we just have to keep trying to get them to undstand."

"Fat lot of good that will do, if Sara and Greg are lying somewhere bleeding to death." Warrick ground out.

"Don't say that!" Nick snapped.

"We're all thinking it. I'm just the one saying it."

"We know that, Nick." Grissom interjected. "We have to stay focussed, let the fire department do their work and hope for the best.

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"Can you help me out?" Sara asked, slightly worried at Greg's pallor.

Biting his lip, Greg nodded. Bracing himself for the inevitable pain, he moved his hands to under Sara's shoulders and pulled her out of the dumpster. His ankle, however, couldn't take the strain and with a cry of pain, he collapsed to the ground, Sara landing in his lap.

"Anything to get your hands on me, eh?" Sara jested, before she could get a good look at his face.

It had gone grey, a sheen of sweat on his upper lip. He was breathing very shallowly, more gasping than anything else.

"Greg, what's the matter?" Increasingly worried when he failed to answer her, Sara checked over his face, which seemed unhurt, then ran her hands over his torso. As soon as she touched his sides, Greg hissed with pain. Scared at what she would find, Sara quickly unbuttoned his shirt.

"You know, if you wanted me naked all you had to do was ask." Greg mustered a weak smile at his own joke, causing Sara to bite back a sob. 'He's always so-'

Moving carefully, Sara pushed his shirt out of the way and then it was her turn to gasp. There were three large bruises discolouring the right hand side of his rib cage. The bruise on his left side was much nastier though, as there was an angry red puncture wound in the middle of it, that was slowly oozing blood.

Swallowing down her fear, Sara managed a weak smile: "Well, you cracked some of your ribs I think. But this one," She gently ran her hand around the hole in his side, anxious not to cause any further pain. "This one is definitely broken."

"I know."

Sara's jaw dropped. Had Greg just?

"What do you mean you know?"