SLOW BURN
~ Chapter 26 ~
A/N: At the beginning of December last year, Fanfiction disabled a lot of site features due to an onslaught of spam attacks and, while many of them have since been restored, PM notifications are still not working. That means that while story and chapter alerts go out to our readers and review notifications are sent to us, any review replies that we write back will show up in your inbox but you will not get an email to let you know that they are there.
So, if you've sent reviews to FF authors in the past five months and didn't get a reply, it might be worth swinging by your inbox and just having a quick look to see if you've missed it because I can't be the only one that, despite knowing what was going on, sat and replied to my last chapter's reviews only to realize afterwards that the recipient may not even see it.
"So…" Adjusting his tie for, what seemed like, the hundredth time since putting it on, Brass turned to look at his best man beside him. "Any advice?"
"Advice?" Leaning against the side wall of Jim's house while they awaited their cue, Grissom stared at the large marquee - and the busy caterers within - that was taking up almost half of the backyard before turning to study his friend. "It's a bit late for that, isn't it?" He checked his watch. "Your bride should be ready any minute now."
"True," Jim conceded. "But it just occurred to me that I'm sitting next to the only person I know that drove their marriage into the flames and managed to pull it out again." Leaning forward slightly, he waved to the little boy in the front row who was standing on his seat waving wildly at them. "With another woman's kid in tow I might add."
"Ben was never another woman's kid." Grissom insisted as he straightened his own tie.
With his preference leaning more towards darker tones, the silver-grey color that Helen had chosen for both his and Jim's suits was not one that he'd have gone with himself but now, seeing the tone coupled with his dark teal tie and the groom's slightly paler version, he was willing to concede that she'd chosen well.
"There is not a doubt in my mind that Sara was meant to be his mother and how that came about isn't important to me," he smiled at the sight of his wife pulling their clearly excited toddler down onto her lap, "or her for that matter. And as far as pulling our marriage out of the flames, that's taken a lot of hard work on both our parts so if you're truly looking for advice, I'll give it to you - work at it, fight for it and, most importantly, never take it - or each other - for granted because that's exactly where Sara and I went wrong in the first place."
"Well that and living on opposite sides of the world." Jim quipped as he fiddled with his boutonniere.
The nervous energy of earlier had been tempered somewhat thanks to the large whiskey Grissom had plied him with before they'd left the house but there was just enough of it present to keep the groom's restless hands almost constantly on the move.
"Yeah well, that certainly didn't help." Grissom nodded then winced as a sudden sharp pain set up home behind his right eye.
"You okay?" Jim frowned in concern.
"I'm fine." Rubbing at his eye, Grissom stared straight ahead for a moment before shaking his head. "I've got a sort of…" he frowned, "blurry patch I can't seem to clear." He blinked rapidly to try and get rid of it. "I sometime get auras before a migraine hits and I've got a funny feeling that's what this is."
"Can I get you anything?" Jim jerked his thumb back towards the house. "I think we've got some ibuprofen in the bathroom."
"Thanks for the offer but I don't think ibuprofen will cut it today and besides, Helen'll kill you if you go back in there now." He took a calming breath. "Sara carries a couple of Imitrex tablets in her purse for me so, provided I take them in the next half hour or so, I should be able to stop this thing in its tracks."
"You're sure?" Looking out over their eclectic mixture or law enforcement, medical and casino security guests, Jim noted Sara had now handed Ben off to Greg and appeared to be in deep conversation with one of Helen's emergency room colleagues. "I could shoot over there and get them off her if you like."
"And have her find out about it?" Grissom shook his head and managed a grin. "No thanks; I think, health-wise, I've probably scared her enough lately, don't you?"
The soft sounds of Claude Debussy's Clair De Lune that had been playing as the seated guests chatted amongst themselves faded out to be replaced by an extended instrumental opening of Here and Now by Luther Vandross and both men, looked up as the marriage celebrant appeared from the back of the house.
"Almost ready, gentlemen?" With a quick glance over at the two sections of seating and the empty aisle between them, she gave both men a nod of encouragement. "I'll go first then I want you to count to ten and follow me down to the front; Helen and her kids will make a start once we're in position."
Brass froze at her words, his eyes locked on the organza and flower draped wedding arch where they'd finally take their vows.
"You know…" Reaching out to ensure the groom's tie was finally straight, Grissom bit back a grin. "If you're going to make a break for it, now's the time"
The words snapped Jim back to attention and, pushing his best man's hands away, he brushed down the front of his jacket making sure that it was immaculate. "Oh, I'm not going anywhere." The volume of the music rose slightly as the celebrant set off. "I'm just hoping you don't keel over halfway through the ceremony."
"I think I can stay upright that long." Following the instructions they'd been given, Grissom silently counted to ten before turning to his old friend with a wink. "Now, let's go and get the two of you married."
With her phone pressed tightly to her ear, Catherine shook her head dejectedly as she closed the refrigerator door; she'd been searching for something – anything – other than coffee to try and appease the gnawing ache in her stomach but, so far, she was out of luck. She'd been looking forward to grazing amongst the appetizers and finger food on offer as part of the wedding reception, almost fantasizing about the mini lobster rolls Helen had teased her with but, here she was, banished to the break room, for who knows how long, whilst two geeks from I.T. took over all of her office and almost half of her lab.
"No, Conrad." Stalking across to the line of cupboards, she quickly pulled them open one at a time only to come up empty again. "There's not a chance I'm going to make it; the way those two guys have parked themselves in my office staring at my computer screen along with, god knows, how many others they've pulled out of offices and labs around here," she sighed, "I might not even make it home to change before tonight's shift." Turning, she threw a disgusted look in the direction of her office door. "I swear, it's starting to look like mission control in there."
Making her way out of the break room, she felt through her pockets, finally coming up with a few crumpled notes and, with her attention split evenly between the sheriff's voice in her ear and the almost contemptuous glares she was now receiving from the members of dayshift that she passed, she quickly made her way down towards reception and the vending machines she knew she'd find there.
"I am seriously sick of getting the evil eye from everyone here and if I get one more whiny complaint from Richardson about his team not being able to do their work properly, I'm probably going to scream."
Coming to a halt in front of the nearest machine, she balanced the phone between her shoulder and ear as she smoothed out the cash in her hand and carefully slid one of the notes into the slot before she took a step back to quickly peruse the selection and, having made up her mind, pressed the applicable buttons for her choice. Stooping, she grabbed the small bag of salt and vinegar chips and then stepped across to the next machine where she repeated her actions for an ice-cold can of Mountain Dew.
She shoved the remaining cash back in her pocket and, turning, began to make her way to the break room.
"Look I promise, as soon as I hear something, I'll let you know but do me a favor and put your cellphone on silent while the ceremony's going on; it's bad enough that I'm going to have to apologize to Jim and Helen for missing their wedding without also having to say sorry because my call made your phone start blasting the 1812 Overture while they were in the middle of their vows." She rolled her eyes at his answer, offered him a curt goodbye and slipped the handset into her pocket as she stepped, once again, into the break room.
Taking her seat at the room's large table, she made short work of opening her can of soda and was in the process of opening the chip packet when a shape appeared in the doorway.
"Uh, Ms. Willows?" Adam Doyle, the younger of the two computer experts, paused for a moment until she looked up and then continued with an awkward smile. "You want to come through now? We've done about all we can for now."
"Finally!" Pushing the still full packet and can towards the middle of the table, Catherine quickly got to her feet then looked up towards the nearby wall clock. "Maybe, just maybe I'll be able to make it to that reception after all."
"Yeah, I, uh…" Stepping back to allow her to exit, Doyle blushed. "I'm sorry about how much time we've taken up here, it's just been one of those one step forward, two steps back kind of days; we really weren't expecting to be here for more than an hour or two," he shrugged, "maybe three tops."
"Well, as long as we're finally getting somewhere." Stepping into her office, her eyes locked on the large assortment of computers lined up beside the desk. "You guys are going to put all of those back, right?"
"We certainly will." Turning away from the laptop he was busy studying, Jed Foster, Doyle's partner for the day, nodded as if to drive home the point. "We'll make sure every single one of them is back where it belongs and ready to go before we leave." Reaching out, he lightly tapped the edge of the screen he's just been staring at. "Except this one, that is; this one seems to be where the trouble really started."
"Ah good, you found it." Sinking down into the nearest chair, Catherine sighed in relief as she nodded towards the offending machine. "So now all we have to do is find out how to unlock those files and we can-"
"Unlocking the files was never really the problem." Leaning both elbows on the desktop, Foster steepled his fingers as he looked across at her. "Primarily because the files had been locked using a relatively simple program that you, me or anyone can download from the internet for free. No, the problem that we had," he held up a finger, "well, still have actually because we haven't been able to break through that, is what was done to the files before that locking program was even run." Sighing deeply, he shook his head. "The person that did this used another program, one that we haven't been able to identify yet, to encrypt each of those files in place by literally overwriting the original with a new coded version and, without an encryption key, it could be months before we manage to worm our way into them."
"But that can't be system-wide, surely."
"It can and it is; the first time everything was backed up after that program was run, the old original files were replaced with the new locked and encrypted ones and we've been through a couple of backups since then so there's no chance of getting the original data back." Leaning back in the chair, Foster offered her an apologetic smile. "We'll keep working to try and break through that code but, the only way we can think of to discover exactly what those cases are would be to pull each physical casefile from the archives and try and work out why it is that those ones have been targeted."
"And that could take months in itself." Frustrated, Catherine shook her head. "No, we just don't have the manpower for something like that at the moment." She shrugged. "Well, there's nothing I can do about it from this end so I'm just going to have to let the sheriff know what's going on and see how he wants to handle it."
"Well, before you do that, there is one thing we may be able to help you with today." Leaning forward, Foster's smile morphed into a self-satisfied grin. "We may not be able to tell you what those files were or why they were encrypted in the first place but we sure as hell can tell you who it was that did it."
"James and Helen, you have expressed your love to one another through the commitment and promises you have just made and, it is with these in mind, that I now pronounce you man and wife."
He heard the words clearly just as he also heard the cheer that went up from the family and friends around them but, staring deeply into his new bride's eyes, Jim found himself caught in the hazel-colored depths and the clear sparkle of love and happiness he saw there. Tightening his hold on her hands, he ignored the noise behind them and realized that, for the first time in his life he felt completely loved and needed by the woman standing before him.
Whatever he'd had with his first wife it certainly wasn't this; the deep-seated love and longing he had with Helen had been completely lacking with Nancy. In hindsight, they'd confused infatuation with love and the arrival of Ellie – whom he'd known from the start couldn't possibly be his – had only muddied the waters further, leading to fights, additional affairs undertaken simply to hurt each other and, eventually, an extremely messy divorce. He'd never thought he'd marry again after all of that but Helen's compassion, acceptance and friendship that had steadily deepened into, what he now considered, a once in a lifetime love had changed his mind and, although his out-of-the-blue proposal had taken them both by surprise, he hadn't, for a moment, regretted asking her to marry him.
"You might want to kiss her, Jim, I'm pretty sure that's what she's waiting for."
A chuckle went up from those sitting near enough to hear and Jim's eyes snapped from his bride to her daughter standing behind her.
"Well, go on," Kaylee urged, her bright smile a mixture of both amusement and tease. "Some of us want to eat, you know."
Dressed in a long peacock blue dress that matched the color of Grissom's tie, she was a younger carbon copy of her mother and he wondered, not for the first time, how'd he lucked his way into this family; both of Helen's kids had accepted him without hesitation and Trent's two children were both young enough that they barely remembered a time when he wasn't in their lives. He loved all of them as if they were his own and last year's surprise request from his now stepchildren to meet with and get to know Ellie, had cemented them in his heart forever.
"Well okay…" He rolled his eyes at Kaylee and then shot her a quick wink. "If you insist."
The rejoinder earned him a glare from his bride and a laugh from their audience as he gently tugged Helen's hands to pull her closer. Grinning, he was leaning in for the kiss when he saw her eyes widen in surprise just moments before a heavy weight slammed into his back. Pushed bodily into his wife, he managed to somehow keep them both on their feet only to have her yank her hands free and, without a moment's hesitation, push him aside, her attention and focus now on something behind him.
Catching movement out of the corner of his eye, he saw several of her hospital colleagues rush to meet her followed by, what could only be described as, a shocked cry from Sara as she pushed to her feet, Ben erupting into a distressed wail as she held him clamped to her chest.
Kaylee caught his arm and pulled him towards her, her gaze fixed on the scene behind and Jim knew what it was he was about to turn and see; after all, there was only one thing that could have hit him like that, but that knowledge did little to prepare him for the sight of his best man, unconscious and convulsing, on the ground just a few short feet away.
A/N: A very large thank you goes to SylvieT for the above and beyond beta on this chapter.