-1Disclaimer: I do not own CSI. Nothing. Nada. And please don't sue as all I have is my car and my books and nobody gets those. Over my dead body.
A/N: I wanted to keep the tension going, meaning an entire additional chapter without telling what happens to Greg, but after ending the last chapter the way I did, I just haven't got the heart.
I just realised that this is almost finished. I think this chapter and then one very small epilogue. Under 1000 words. I can take constructive criticism and flames are accepted as long as we are talking nice wee candle flames and not raging volcano flames. Those hurt.
A/N2: I feel so guilty. I did not expect the kind of reaction I got from the last chapter. Yes, it is a cliff-hanger, I am just so moved that it touched you that way. It got my muse back into gear. I have no trouble writing my characters into trouble, but the other side, the conclusion does not come easy. Didn't when I was writing my dissertation - lost major points on that - and doesn't now.
Chapter 6
Sara couldn't believe it, Greg had left her. Sobbing silently, she clutched him to her chest, rocking silently, oblivious to the pressure and pain this put on her leg. Nothing could reach her. When the first hand reached for her shoulder she screamed in fright. Looking up, she saw a fireman, but his image wavered as if she were looking through a fractured mirror, while the sound of his voice was filtered by several feet of water.
"Ma'am. Can you hear me?"
Sara had never felt so stupid in her life. There seemed to be no connection between her mouth and her brain.
"Ma'am. We need you to let go."
Vaguely she realised that she was clutching at Greg like a lifeline, but felt unable to let go, even though logically she knew she should. As long as she held on, Greg was not gone. He was still here with her.
"Ma'am. You really need to let go. We have to move you to hospital."
As soon as she loosened her grip, Greg was pulled from her arms as easily as snow melts in the spring.
A helpless cry escaped her as she futilely reached out to hold on. And then he was gone completely. Sara was almost catatonic when the fireman gently picked her up and deposited her on a gurney. The only thought that ran through her brain over and over again were: "Greg's gone. I need him back. He saved my life. I need him-"
A syringe pierced the skin on her arm and she fell into the welcoming arms of the narcotics racing through her body.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"They found them."
The words fell into the silence of the room, like pebbles into a pond, spreading ripples as one by one the people realised what had been said. The reactions were as different as the characters. Grissom silently thanked anybody who happened to be listening. Nick raised his eyes to the heavens and sent a prayer of thanks into the ether. Catherine was quietly relieved, while Warrick thumped the table just once to relieve the tension he had been feeling for the last interminably long eight hours. Marie burst into tears, while Ryan just dropped his head into his hands and asked the question no-one dared face in their first flush of relief.
"Are they alive?" Marie looked at him in shock, how could he even ask that. Asking brought the truth and just now she wanted to savour the feeling of the sister of her heart saved.
Brass didn't know what to say: "Sara has a knife wound in her upper thigh, they are operating on it now. Then there are cuts and bruises, although nothing serious. She was fortunate, the knife did not pierce any mayor arteries. The doctors stitched her up and put her on a drip, transfusing a pint of blood and fluids. She should make a swift recovery."
"Thank God." Marie breathed a sigh of relief. Sara would come back to them.
While Nick was beyond happy that Sara had come out of her ordeal largely unscathed, he was filled with dread by what Brass had not mentioned. In the absence of Greg's grandfather still stuck in a plane halfway across the Atlantic, he asked the pertinent question: "What about Greg?"
"The doctors won't say. His situation is stable."
"That could mean anything. Doctors always say that when they don't know what else to say." Warrick stated, worry flitting over his face.
"Well, that is all I can tell you. The firemen told me they almost lost him on the way to the hospital, but he is alive right now. They will only inform next of kin." Brass paused, then added: "Sara said he saved her life."
