Things Aren't Always as They Seem

I do not own CSI or any of their characters. If I did, there would be a lot of hot Cath/Sara moments. I do own my own characters though :-)

If You can't tell this will have femslash, so if it's not your thing don't waste your time.

In my story Sara and Grissom never left. Though Warrick did die. This will eventually get to Cath and Sara hooking up. There is talk of physical, mental and sexual abuse. All mistakes are my own. English was never my best subject. But I hope you like, please feel free to send suggestions, tell me if you like it, hate it. This is my first story with an actual plot, so I hope it doesn't suck too bad.

I already have a few chapters wrote, so hopefully i'll be updating weekly if not more. I'd also like to thank my 'special someone' for making me feel like i can actually write. :-) Mwah.

Chapter 1

Catherine hurriedly entered the lab, thinking she was late to her shift after having another argument with Lindsey about not being allowed to go out of town this weekend with a group of her friends.

As long as I still have some say, I'm going to keep her as safe as i can.

She rounded the corner and slowed down upon seeing Nick and Greg in the break room, sitting at the table, with Sara sitting on the couch by herself. Guess I'm not as late as I thought.

"Hey Catherine, Griss went to get our slips, he wants us just to wait for him in here so he doesn't have to come hunt us down" Greg informed her as she got herself some coffee and took a seat on the couch beside Sara.

Nick and Greg went back to talking to one another, Catherine was still going over her fight with Linds in her head, while Sara silently drank her coffee wishing she would have got more sleep before shift.

"Ok guys we don't have much tonight, so Nick you get a B&E at Mandalay Bay. Cath, Sara and Greg, I don't have the details yet, but Brass said to send at least two, but since it's slow I figured I'd send three of you. You're meeting him down in Henderson, the location is on the slip." Grissom told his team, giving one slip to Nick, as Catherine got up to take the other one from him.

"And Ecklie told me if i don't catch up on my paper work i wont be going to the conference on the Integrated Control of Scolytid Bark Beetles." You could see him dreaming about his bugs before he left the break room heading for his office.

As Catherine, Sara and Greg finally made there way to the scene they saw a rather large house with police cars lining the drive way. It wasn't a mansion of any sort, but what looked to be maybe a farm house redone and updated.

"It's a good thing we've got GPS now, there is no way I'd ever of found this place without it." Sara spoke as she pulled into the drive way. She parked and they all got out, grabbed their cases from the back and made their way over to Brass who was standing near the porch waiting for them to get to him.

"Well we've got a messy and confusing one. A call came into 911 about an hour ago at 8:00pm, from the the youngest girl, Casandra" He motioned his head towards a group who were all huddled together, crying.

"On the call Casandra, said that Nathan had killed himself and that a Christine was bleeding and that they needed help. The call was dropped, but once the paramedics arrived both, the boy, Nathan who was 12 and Christine, 39, who was his mother were DOA. There is a lot of blood and Doc is waiting for you before entering. I talked to Casandra's mother, Patty and she said that the boy killed his mother and then himself. Patty's son, Johnny said the same thing as did his sister. Christine's daughter and Nathans older sister, Danielle, just got here a few minutes ago. They have all been a mess. I'm really not getting much from them, I think it'd be easier if we just separate them for now, take them down to the lab, let you do your thing, then interview each of them?" Brass asked them with an exasperated look.

Catherine paused for a moment to take in all of what he'd just said, it didn't seem that confusing to her, so perhaps she'd missed something. She looked over at the group Brass had motioned to once more to get everything set in her head.

Ok so the vics are Christine and her son Nathan, it appears to be a murder suicide. I'm going to guess the oldest looking teen in the group is Danielle, Christine's daughter and Nathans sister. She looks like she's about 17, the same age as Lindsey, that poor girl must be going through hell right now.

She then took in the other teens in the group. Ok the boy must be Johnny he looks like he might be about the same age as Danielle, if not a bit younger, and then his sister Casandra, who looks to be around 14 or 15. Both of the teens seem to be trying their best to console Danielle. Which left Patty. She seemed to be keeping her distance from Danielle, but staying close to her own children. Everyone had some kind of blood on them, but Patty appeared to have more on her than the others.

Catherine turned back to ask Brass a few questions, and saw that Sara must of been getting all the details straight in her mind as well. After a moment Sara nodded towards Catherine letting her know she could ask her questions first.

"Jim who is it that lives here exactly? Is this Christine's or Patty's home?"

"According to Patty they both live here. Something about the house being big enough for everyone to have their own rooms and it being easier to help each other out with the kids."

"I wish I had a friend like that, it'd be easier than relying on my sister and hearing my mother complain whenever I need her help." Catherine said with a bit of laughter to her voice. Her attention went to Sara to let her know to go ahead with any questions she might have.

"Does Danielle have any family we can call to be with her right now? I mean she did loose her mother and her brother."

"Patty had mentioned that the only family Danielle had had died tonight. So, we'll call social services or something once we get back to the lab, Patty did mention that she'd like the girl to be able to stay with her and her kids, but we'll see what the social worker has to say."

"Alright Greg they are going to need processed, so why don't you get as many pictures of them as you can, collect their clothing and any evidence on them. If you want you can ride back to the lab with one of the officers to get started on all that evidence, while Sara and I take the House." Catherine nodded towards Greg as he picked up his case to go start processing the 'family'.

"Jim, Sara and I are going to head in, we'll call you when we are headed back to the lab."

With that Sara grabbed her case and headed to the door, she couldn't help but look at Danielle again. There was something about the way the girl looked that reminded her of herself when she was younger. The fitted leather coat, dark hair, and she could tell the girl wasn't into tanning. She caught the girls eye and could see that she had the same hurt and haunted look she had herself growing up with.

Sara shook her head and went through the door. As soon as she was through the door she could smell the iron, there was a lot of blood somewhere in this house. This was going to be a hard one for her. Even though domestic abuse was completely out of the question, seeing that girl, Danielle, it brought back some of her own demons.

Catherine reached out grabbing Sara's arm to stop her from stepping onto a bloody shoe print.

"Whoa, there Sara, we are suppose to collect the evidence not track through it." She wasn't trying to put Sara down and hoped Sara realized that, as Sara spun around Catherine could see something in Sara's eyes that seemed a little off. Sara looked down to see several bloody footprints.

"Sorry, Catherine.. I uh, didn't get much sleep before shift." She knew Cath wasn't trying to fight with her. They for the most part have learned to get a long with each other and they both knew they made a great team when they worked together.

"If ya want I can see if Gil can come out, I know he'd love an excuse to get away from that paperwork."

"It's ok, I'm awake now, on top of my game, good to go, see" Sara said with an over abundant amount of enthusiasm while she bounced up and down on her feet a couple times to get the point across. "no worries kay?"

"Mmmk, lets get started, by the look of the bloody footprints in here it may take a while."

With that they both started their long task of collecting evidence, making their way to the bodies. Catherine took one path of bloody footprints up the stairs, while Sara followed others through the kitchen, into the living room, pausing to look at the pictures displayed around the room.

She could see all the kids and both mothers in the pictures, it looked like they had all been together for quit a while. Above the couch was what appeared to be the school photo's for each of the kids with the exception of Danielle, it looked like there had been a spot for her photo, but it'd be taken down. Glancing around to the other pictures throughout the room you could see the kids goofing around with each other and wearing weird smiles and there even appeared to be a few professional pictures of both families together. They all looked so happy and Sara felt a ping of jealousy, what she would've given for just one week in a home like this when she was a teenager. And then she realized this 'family' would never again be the same and her jealousy turned into sadness.

Catherine made her way up the stairs and followed the footprint's into what appeared to be Christine's room, her body on the floor and blood splatter covering the bed, dresser and walls. This had been a horribly brutal stabbing. She started photographing every blood splatter and shoe impression hoping it might shed some light on just what went on in this room.

Sara had continued out of the living room after photographing a few of the pictures and kept following the bloodied footprints. She eventually found herself at the top of another stair case, at the other end of the house in Nathan's bedroom. She had to remind herself to focus on the crime scene and not of the young boy who laid dead on the bed in front of her. The room itself wasn't too big, but it wasn't too small either. There was a hockey stick and a bowling ball in the corner, a desk and a dresser. She went to the dressing opening each drawer and taking a photo before going to the next one. He didn't have many pictures in his room, but those that he did were mostly of him and his sister, Danielle.

Going over to the desk she saw an open notebook with a blank page and a pen. Aside from that the desk was empty. Deciding it was time she focused on the boy. The position of his body indicated that he had been sitting on the side of his bed when he shot himself on the right side of his head. The gun was still in his right hand and off to the left of the body was a bloody knife. There appeared to be some kind of square shaped void in the blood, she noted that and took pictures before bagged and tagged the knife. After she finished up in the room she asked the officer that was standing at the top of the stairs if he'd go get the doc to start on the boys body while she went into the room across from Nathan's.

There weren't any bloody footprint's leading into the room and when she opened the door she saw a rather drab room. There were only two pictures on the night stand, one of Patty and her kids and one of just her kids. Sara also noted the dust around the picture and photographed it along with the room that was in perfect order. There was something off about the room, but she just couldn't put her finger on it. With one last look around she went back to the hallway, moving to the room next to Nathan's.

Large bold signs with "Stay Away" and "Do Not Enter" were taped to the door. It was a pretty large room and looked like a typical male teens room, so it must be Johnny's. The full size bed wasn't made and there were a couple pairs of jeans and shirts on the floor, but still very organized and clean for a teen. She noted the nice tv and sound system with multiple game consoles scattered on the floor in front of the tv, with a laptop sitting beside all of it. Checking out the closet she was very impressed with the size of it. It was packed full of shirts, shoes and jeans. She took a couple pictures before once again moving to the hallway.

Catherine had finally finished taking as many photo's as she could of Christine's room. She figured they'd probably need to use the labs new 3D scene program to get a good idea of how everything happened and you need lots of overlapping photographs in order for it to work correctly. Catherine really hadn't been able to come up with the crime in her head, though she did notice a void in the blood splatter on the bed and was sure to collect the sheets and print the room. She left the room to get Robbins and saw him entering a room at the other end of the house, so she carefully headed down the hall taking pictures of all the bloody footprint's. Sorting all these out are going to be a pain in the ass. I sure hope Sara is up for this tonight.

"Catherine" Sara said softly alerting her to her presence. "How many rooms do you have done?"

"I only have Christine's done, there was a lot of blood, so I'm hoping we can use our 3D program to get a picture of what happened. How about you?"

"I've processed the Nathan's room, Patty's and I just got done with Johnny's. The only room that had blood in it was Nathan's and I found the gun in his right hand, and a bloody knife to the left of his body. Patty's room was a bit odd, I'm not sure why exactly, I just thought there was something off about it, maybe you could take a look, see if it comes to you?" Catherine nodded her head and followed Sara to Patty's room.

After looking around a bit Catherine shook her head "it looks normal to me, a little plain for my tastes, but nothing weird about it."

"I must just be having an off night." I can't wait to get back to the lab and get some more coffee in me. "I think Doc is in with Nathan right now, we can both go in there and then split the last two rooms then head to the lab?" Sara didn't wait for an answer and instead headed to Nathan's room with Catherine behind her.

Catherine paused at the door when she first saw the boy, she knew they had a dead 12 year old boy here and yet seeing him made her stop. He looked so young, so innocent.

"Well ladies this one is pretty simple, gun shot wound to the head. When I get back to the lab I'll do a full work up, but for now that's all I have on the boy" he said while motioning to his assistant to get the boys body ready for transportation. "Oh and he has been dead for at least 7 hours. Would one of you like to show me to the other body?"

Sara was turning to head out of the room before she swung back around to face the doc. "Wait, 7 hours? Are you sure? Jim said the 911 call came in at 8pm," Sara checked her watch "and it's almost midnight, so the boy was dead 4 hours before we came? And no one noticed." Sara asked Robbins expectantly.

"Look all I can tell you is the boy has been dead for at least 7 hours. Now the next body please, I'd like to get them back to the lab sometime tonight."

Catherine motioned for him to follow her and soon after they had left Sara went down to the room to find out about Christine's body.

"I'm going to go with death by a sharp object, there is too much blood on her now to know for sure which stab killed her" he lifted up her arms to take a closer look "but I do see lots of defensive wounds on her hands and arms, she put up quit a fight. Now onto liver temp" with that he stuck a special thermometer into the woman's stomach "hmm, let's see, she's been dead for a little over 3 hours... I thought they said the boy killed his mother first and then himself?"

"Yeah, that's what Jim said, I guess this isn't a simple murder, suicide anymore. It's going to be a very long night" Catherine glanced at her watch, they hadn't been there too long, but she wanted to get back to the lab so they could start piecing together the evidence. "If that's all Doc, Sara and I have two more rooms to finish up and then we'll meet you back at the lab to get the full reports."

"Sounds good to me" he looked past Catherine and Sara to his assistant in the hallway "do you need a special invitation or are you going to get in here and help me get this body back to the lab" he shook his head in a disgusted, yet amused sort of way "new guys are always lingering about, they never come in to help, noo... you have to tell them to come in and then remind them of what it is they are suppose to be doing."

Catherine turned and started out, with Sara once again right behind her. "How about I take this room" Catherine pointed to the room beside Christine's "and you can take that one over there?", she said pointing to the last door on the other side of the hall that was beside the bathroom. Sara just nodded and headed into said room.

It was a dark room. The curtains weren't open, the paint could've been a purple or a blue, she wasn't sure, she liked seeing a room how it was left before turning on the lights. And at this moment the only thing lighting the room was the lamp beside the bed. This had to be Danielle's bedroom.

There was a mirror on the floor with hair products and make up spread around it. I suppose in a house with six people and only two bathrooms you don't get much mirror or bathroom time. She slowly walked around the room taking pictures of everything and taking in as much information as she could get by looking at the bedroom. The full sized bed was made with a closed computer sitting near the head of the bed. Books were piled up around the small desk and beside the bed. There were a couple photographs tucked into the mirror on the dresser, they were of her and her brother and what looked to be another friend her age. She had a few more framed photo's of her, Casandra, Johnny and Nathan. And one with everyone from the household in it. She couldn't help but notice once again that they all had smiles, real smiles, not fake one's you put on when you get your picture taken. If there was one thing Sara has learned over the years it was to be able to see the fake smiles.

She strode over to the bed and noticed several pill bottles sitting on the nightstand, upon opening the drawer she found several more in a large zip-locked baggy. The only one's she recognized was the folic acid and a anti-depressant. Checking the dosage on the folic acid made lights go off in her head. I'm pretty sure only pregnant woman tend to take this dosage, 17 and pregnant, and she just lost her mother and brother. This girl is going to have to be pretty damn strong to survive all this. Sara grabbed the medications and put them in a bag figuring the girl would probably need it seeing as most said take twice a day. With the meds in hand she stepped out of that bedroom and headed towards the room Catherine had said she'd take.

The last room was Casandra's, her name was on the door in big bubbly cut out letters. It looked very neat and organized, with pictures and posters all over the walls. Everything was very pink, but not a 3 year old girl pink, but a young teenager pink. The full sized bed was made, with a few stuffed animals. She had a small desk in the corner with a laptop opened up and books around it, upon closer inspection Sara could see she was in the middle of an English assignment when everything started.

Catherine was taking pictures of the nice entertainment center loaded with 'chic flicks'. As she looked around it reminded her very much of what Linds' room used to look like.. minus the entertainment center. She opened the closet to see lots of very expensive brand clothing. Clothing brands her and Lindsey usually fought over because of the prices. I will never understand why some parents spend so much money on clothing that a young teen like this is going to outgrow in less than a year.

"So do you think we are looking at a double homicide or do you think Nathan killed himself?" Catherine asked as she took a couple last pictures before heading out of the bedroom and down the hall retracing Sara's steps. She wanted to take in each of the rooms herself before they headed back to the lab.

"Well, I didn't find a note, at the time I was thinking he'd killed his mother, so I took that as the reason for killing himself. Now we know that isn't the case. I did find a small square void in his blood, but it was too small to have been a letter of any kind." She said as they entered Nathans room one last time. Sara showed Catherine the void, which had been left untouched by the coroner.

"I found a void in the blood in Christine's room too, but it was the size of a piece of paper, definitely not this small" she pointed towards the void "ya know that looks about the size of a ring box... or a folded up note, I've found plenty of those in Lindsey's jeans over the years" Catherine informed her while moving over to the the desk. "Why don't we take this empty notebook, maybe whatever he wrote last will shed some light on everything.".

Sara followed Catherine out of the room and back down the stairs, pausing while Catherine took in all the pictures in the living room. "Catherine, something went very wrong with this...umm.." She tried to think of a word to describe the two meshed families. "family? This isn't like most families who just look happy, I mean these pictures show that they were all very much happy and now two of them are dead. And the boy had been dead since at least 5 this afternoon and no one noticed till 8pm."

Catherine watched Sara shake her head and turn to leave heading for the door. Sara has always had her off moments, but this case is really getting to her. I just don't get why. I mean I know that she had and at times has issues with domestic abuse, but like she said, this was a happy family until tonight, so why is this one so different for her? I hope when we talk to everyone we can put the pieces together and end this case quickly. Cuz, I am so not ready to take ten steps back with Sara, we've actually become friends. We got out to eat, catch a movie and she's always good about asking Linds if she wants to join us. It's nice having a friend who is a girl.

As Catherine made her way towards the Tahoe, she smiled at all the good memories her and Sara had the last few years. Grabbing her phone, she called Brass. "Jim, hey it's Catherine, yeah we just finished processing the house" She jumped in the passenger side seat while, Sara started it up heading back to the lab. "The boy died around 5pm, and the mother died around 8pm, so there is no way the boy killed his mother first... No we still don't know for sure if he killed himself, when we get back to the lab doc will have more for us, can you wait to start the interview's with everyone until we get back?... Ok We'll see you in a bit then." With that Catherine hung up her phone and started going over everything in her head again as they drove back to the lab in silence.