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Chapter Four

A soft rhythmic beeping filled my ears. I could still feel Catherine's hand on mine. I breathed in deeply, but this time my intake of air wasn't mixed with sand, it was clear. "Catherine…" I whispered. I needed to hear her voice.

"Catherine is in the room next door, Sara."

I opened my eyes slowly to see Nick by the side of my bed, his hand atop of mine - not Catherine's.

"What?" My voice was croaky.

"You're in hospital. Catherine is fine."

Tears started pouring down my cheeks at Nick's words. She was okay.

"Try and rest, Sara. I'm going to let the nurse know you're awake." Nick's hand left mine and he disappeared out of the bright white room.

I took another deep breath of air and realized my mouth was no longer dry. My eyes caught sight of a drip attached to my arm and some other wires coming out from under my hospital shirt. Nick returned with a nurse within a few seconds.

"How long have I been here?" I asked.

The nurse helped me sit up in the bed a little and Nick passed me a glass of water. My hands were still shaky and he helped me sip the cold liquid before placing it back down on the table beside my bed.

"Two days. You've been through quite an ordeal." The nurse answered my question. She was a short blonde girl who must have only been in her mid-twenties, dressed in a blue cotton shirt and trousers, she had a clipboard in her hand and was writing something out.

"Is Catherine awake?" Tears stung my eyes.

"Not yet, honey." Nick looked at me sympathetically.

"But she's going to be okay?"

"Yes. She just needs to rest."

"I want to see her." I felt tears spill down my cheeks, I couldn't stop them.

"You can, soon. Grissom is with her for when she wakes up." Nick replied.

I let the nurse check my pupils and she replaced my IV bag with more fluid.

"How did you find us?"

"The officers at the scene called Grissom at 3am to say you'd never shown up, and Warwick and I drove out to find you but you weren't on highway 322, or on Great Basin Way."

I frowned, although unable to remember a lot of what had happened, I didn't know why they hadn't been on either of the two main routes around the state park.

"A family ending their vacation at Echo Canyon found you on a nearby road as they drove back to Vegas."

I lay back on the hospital bed and closed my eyes. Glimpses of what had happened were coming back to me, I remembered how Catherine had held my hand for hours, that I had kept her warm as she slept, how her lips felt against mine. Nick wiped my tears as they fell but it was a futile task as more tears only came after.

"You're alright now." Nick shushed.

Eventually I managed to fall back to sleep.

The next time I awoke I found myself alone in the hospital room. I slowly sat up and brought my legs to the side of the bed. I had to see Catherine.

I pulled the IV from my hand and the ECG stickers from my chest before easing my feet onto the floor. I glanced at a clock hung on the wall opposite my bed that read 6am, although being in here I seemed to have lost all concept of night and day. My soles were still very sore and I grimaced a little at the pain as I made my way out of my hospital room and into the corridor. The hospital was deadly quiet and I slowly headed down the corridor to the room next to mine. My legs were shaky and ached with every movement I made, but I would crawl if I had to.

Pushing open the door, I saw her asleep in the bed, Grissom sat next in the chair next to her, wide awake.

"You shouldn't be out of bed." he said quietly, as not to wake Catherine.

"I had to see her."

Grissom pulled up a chair alongside his and I slowly eased myself into it.

"She woke up a few hours ago, asking for you." Grissom said. "You were very brave to do what you did."

"I didn't do anything."

"The family that found you said that they saw you carrying her."

"Cath had collapsed, I wasn't going to leave her," I paused, "she wanted to stay in the car but I told her to walk. Maybe if we'd just stayed there and waited for Nick to find us she wouldn't be like this."

"If you'd stayed in the car you would have both gotten hypothermia, we both know that. Your only option was to walk in the hope of finding some help."

I wiped away a tear that I slipped down my face, "Is she okay?"

"She's fine, Sara. The doctor said you should be able to leave this afternoon and Catherine should be discharged tomorrow."

I reached out and took Catherine's warm hand in mine, the sensation of her skin on mine bringing back flashes of memories from the desert.

Grissom and I sat in silence for a few minutes before I went back to my room, tiredness taking over my body again. I closed my eyes only to dream of being back in the cave with Catherine, her body pressed against mine.

I slid my feet slowly into my black ankle boots, being careful not to cause myself any unnecessary pain, the doctor had assured me that the gashes to my feet would heal within a week or so, as long as I took it easy. I pulled a black hooded jumper over my cotton blue t-shirt and stood up off of the hospital bed to straighten myself out. Grissom stood a few feet away with a wheelchair, which I had told him several times I wouldn't be making use of.

I had visited Catherine again after lunch but she had still been asleep, and not wanting to wake her I assured myself that she was in fact fine and that I would see her at work soon enough. Grissom had tried to convince me to take some annual leave to recover, but I had declined - agreeing to take the rest of the day off and have a gradual increase of workload starting from tomorrow night's shift. Not working made me uncomfortable, my mind tended to drift when it didn't have something to occupy it, recently it had been drifting to Catherine but I knew without warning it could start bringing up memories from the past that could start a spiraling of events, mostly involving alcohol.

I let Grissom hold doors open for me as he led me through the hospital and out to the parking lot. He had offered to drive me home and then he would go back to the hospital to sit with Catherine before tonight's shift started. I appreciated the amount of time and care he'd taken with the both of us, although I didn't expect anything less, he was a kind man.

"If you don't feel up to coming into work tomorrow I would completely understand." Grissom said as he drove them through the busy mid-afternoon Vegas traffic.

"Don't worry, I'll be there." I paused.

"Do you want me to pass on a message onto Catherine when she wakes up?"

"Just let her know I'm home and alright?" It seemed like a bit of a pathetic message to pass on, I had so badly wanted to talk to her myself, but at least she would know I was thinking of her.

"I'll let her know." Grissom assured me.

We spent the rest of the drive to my apartment in silence and after thanking Grissom for the lift I entered my apartment building and took the lift up to my floor. Slipping the key into the front door and pushing it open, I stood in the doorway and surveyed my empty living space. My apartment was painted in warm shades of orange and brown, I'd attempted to create some sort of ethnic atmosphere when I'd moved in but it was outdated and bored me now. My kitchen and living room were in the same room but the kitchen area was blocked off by a counter, the living room area was basically a couch, a wooden chair and a coffee table.

I hated my apartment. It was so quiet, it made me feel crazy sometimes. I opened my fridge in the hope there was something in there that I could consume - a carton of milk and 3 eggs. I groaned and headed over to my couch, slumping down on the thin padding that covered the wooden frame. Part of me couldn't quite believe what had happened over the last few days. I had nearly died. Catherine had nearly died.

We had kissed. I didn't even know where to start when it came to trying to understand that. Did it mean anything to her, or was it a reach out for human contact in a moment of giving up hope? Part of me had wanted to have spoken to her today in the hope of gaining some sort of idea as to how she felt about me, was anything different now?

The longer I sat on my couch the cloudier my thoughts became, and soon the sun had set and I was sat in the dark. I could no longer decipher a good thought from a bad one and I settled into a platonic state where I could only remember the feeling of her body rise and fall against mine and how good it had felt to have her in my arms, even if just for a few hours. I eventually fell asleep, only to dream of the endless sandy desert and the pounding heat, and the feeling of despair I had felt as I had watched her collapse next to me.

Work couldn't come soon enough the next day, and despite my shift being scheduled to start at midnight I was in the lab by 9pm and trying to work through some paperwork I had lost track of the previous week. Sat in the break room, I sipped at a steaming cup of coffee as I shuffled through what seemed to be a mountainous amount of papers.

"Are you sure you should be here?"

I looked up to see Nick pouring himself a coffee from the coffee pot. "I'm fine."

"You look tired."

"Stop worrying." I went back to my work in the hope he would leave the subject alone, but he came and sat down next to me.

"Catherine's getting discharged in the morning. Her sister, Wendy, is staying with her for a few days 'til she's back on her feet, but she's as desperate to get back to work as you were."

"Good." I was glad someone was keeping an eye on her for a few days.

"You know, if you wanted to talk about what happened, I'm here?" Nick reached out and put his hand on my arm.

I looked over at him and smiled, "Thanks, Nick."

He stayed sat down next to me for a few minutes, like he was trying to find something to say, before getting up and leaving the break room.

Time seemed to drag as I slowly made my way through form after form. I started to wonder if I should be in the lab at all, maybe my mind wasn't ready for this. Eventually my watch read midnight and I headed down to Grissom's office to see if there were any cases for me to work on.

Nick, Warrick and Grissom stood in the small office; Grissom leant up against his desk, paperwork in hand.

"Nick and Warwick, you've got a double murder at the Palazzo hotel," Grissom passed them a sheet of paper with the address and any details he'd been passed by PD. "I've got a burglary in Henderson, and Sara you're documenting some of swing shift's evidence."

"I'm not on a case?" I frowned. I didn't think I could bare to do any more paperwork.

"Not tonight." Grissom tried to close down the conversation by grabbing his jacket from the chair behind his desk and following Nick and Warwick out of his office.

"So I'm in the lab all on my own all shift?" I interrupted his walking.

"You're not on your own, you've got Greg." He turned back to face me, a little agitated.

"I want to be useful, Grissom."

"Sara, a few days ago we all thought you were dead, and we were nearly right," he snapped at me, "Let me take care of you for once." and with that he walked off, not allowing me the time to respond.

I sighed, annoyed at his shortness with me. He didn't need to take care of me, I could take care of myself. I let myself into the office next door that belonged to the supervisor for swing shift and grabbed the large cardboard box from the desk, before finding an empty evidence room and getting started on my work for the night.