Sara left the locker room and was on her way to find Greg. As she was walking past DNA, Brass stopped her.
"Good news, we got a warrant for Mr Dawson's car, it's still at the motel on I-15," he smiled blatantly.
"Great, I'll get Greg and make sure you call auto detail, I doubt Mr Dawson will be willing to open the trunk or the car itself for us," She smiled and rolled her eyes.
"I'm on it," Brass said as he was walking away.
It was now 2am and Sara still hadn't found Greg. She had asked Grissom, Nick, Warrick and Catherine, but none of them had seen the former lab tech. Nick had checked the men's room and the break room, and Catherine had been calling his cell, as had she. She was starting to panic, he couldn't have gone far, and his car was still in the lot and his coat still in the locker room. She walked outside and the cool breeze hit her. She walked all around the buildings searching for him. Then suddenly her heart stopped, she saw someone lying in a heap on the floor. She allowed herself to breathe, to reason with herself. It might not be Greg, she thought to herself. Nevertheless she ran over and put two fingers to their neck to check for a pulse. She felt nausea take over her as she saw the face. It was Greg.
"Greg? Can you hear me? Oh God please, talk to me," She cried, desperately. She dialled nine-one-one on her cell and shakily told the operator where to go to and what had happened. She called Grissom and told him everything. He was beside her in under a minute. Sara felt her eyes welling up, hot tears streaming down her face. Grissom pulled her to him, comforting her in her silent tears.
"He will be okay Sara, don't worry," Grissom said, his words not quite reaching her. The paramedics arrived and checked Greg's vitals; they wheeled him now semi-conscious into the ambulance. By now most of the lab had gathered, concerned for their colleague, their friend. Sara got into the ambulance; she couldn't stay behind and work the case alone for she was too worried.
As the ambulance drew into Desert Palm Hospital, it was nearly 3am. Sara held tightly to Greg's hand as they wheeled him into the E.R. The doctors rushed him through the doors;
"Okay, we have a 33 year old Caucasian male, collapsed at work, his vitals are stable, no imminent emergency," the doctor recited to his colleagues. They shone a bright light into Greg's eye and he began to come to. His head felt fuzzy and light, he didn't know where he was. They wheeled him through to a private room and asked him what he could remember;
"I didn't feel so good, I went out to go get some air but that made it worse. I remember falling against a wall, then nothing," Greg answered, gently.
"Okay, well you just have a severe case of exhaustion, take it easy for the next few days, then you should be fine. We need to keep you in tonight for observation, but you should he fine to leave tomorrow," the doctor replied, matter-of-factly. Sara walked into the room and took Greg's hand in her own. He turned his head towards her and smiled;
"Sara,"
"hey you," she replied, clearly relieved.
" I didn't mean to scare you," he breathed.
"Well you really did. I thought I'd lost you," She whispered, her voice breaking with emotion.
"Hey, hey it's okay, I'm fine Sara," He lightly stroked her cheek. "Don't worry yourself over me, I'm not worth that much," he laughed softly.
"You are to me," She whispered. She leaned into him and kissed his mouth. When she pulled back, he was smiling.
"I always knew you couldn't resist me," He smiled, then laughed as she glared at him, her hand still on his own.
"So I like you. So what?" She replied, defensively.
"So lets do something about it," he smiled, the seriousness had returned to his voice.
"I don't know, maybe, I'm just so…shook up still, you know?" She sighed, angry at herself for letting her rapist ruin her life.
"I understand completely," he smiled, but the pain in his eyes overpowered it. "I'm always here," he whispered, desperately trying to keep the emotion out of his voice.
"When you get out of here, lets talk about it, maybe if I do I can let go of the ghosts holding me, I could live again," she whispered, praying she had the strength to do this, to move on and get better. She had been tired and emotional, a train wreck for much too long. That bastard didn't deserve that much. Greg merely nodded in response, his tears imminent, his sorrow evident. She kissed him and then turned to walk away. She got to the door and turned;
"Feel better okay?" she smiled, she did not want to leave, but she knew she had to. She called Grissom to tell him that Greg was okay and he just needed some time off. He told her to take some time off, for fear of the same thing happening to her. She declined, and got in a taxi;
"Las Vegas Crime Lab please," she asked. The driver nodded and set off.
Sara watched the world go by out of the window. She looked at her watch; 4:30am. The last thirty minutes of the journey dragged on. She got out of the taxi and paid her fare. Brass was outside waiting.
"How's Sanders?" He asked, concerned in his own way.
"He's going to be fine," She replied, clearly on auto-pilot.
"Are you sure you should be on shift?" Brass asked her, softly.
"Yeah, I need the distraction," she replied.
"Shall we go and check out Dawson's car?" He asked, smiling.
"Sounds like a plan," She smiled back, "I'll drive," she added.
"Just don't kill us," Brass jibed. Sara gave him a look and climbed into the Tahoe. She put on her seat belt and drove quickly across the roads and winding side streets. She turned onto Interstate 15 and began looking for motels along the way. Did you find out which motel?" Sara asked.
"The Jolly Cactus," Brass chuckled, "Only in Vegas," Sara pulled up into the motel car park and stopped the car. They left the Tahoe, Sara with her crime scene kit in hand. She shone her Maglite over the green Golf GT, her eyes taking in the broken tail light and what appeared to be secondary transfer on the bumper. She opened her kit and took a small scraping of the red transfer, possible from another vehicle or a mail box. She sealed the evidence into her kit and continued to take pictures of the car from various angles.
"I'm going to speak to the manager, see if he can give us Mr Dawson's location," Brass said, his wry smile plastered across his face.
"Okay," Sara replied, clearly absorbed in her work.
"You CSI's really need to get out more," Brass laughed and strode up to the motel entrance.
Sara dusted the cars door handle for any useable prints; she smiled as a print appeared beneath her non-regulation pink printing powder. She lifted the print and rose to secure it in her kit, when suddenly, an iron grip crushed around her, a hand across her mouth. She bit down hard and fought to see her attacker.
"Stay still, don't struggle, and you won't get your brains blown out," the angry male voice hissed. She was suddenly thrown against the car, breaking the window. There in front of her, holding a gun stood Michael Dawson.
"You get rid of this evidence or I'll shoot you and that other one too," he spat.
Sara was helpless; she knew that one false move would result in her death. She stood frozen against the car, blood streaming down her face.
"Do it, do it now," He grabbed her hair pulling it hard, and thrusting the gun to her head. He pulled her away from the car and stood behind her, choking her. Sara was praying Brass would come out, or one of her colleagues whom she was meeting at this scene. She was praying that they didn't get here too late. He pushed her down to the ground, pointing the gun at her head, when she suddenly glimpsed someone behind her attacker. It was Catherine and Warrick, guns drawn, to her aid.
"Put the gun down," Catherine said, nudging her own gun into Dawson's temple.
"Don't I'll shoot her, I'll do it," he hissed.
"Not before you shoot me," Warrick stood between Dawson and Sara, pointing the gun between Dawson's eyes. Catherine grabbed Dawson's wrist and with one smooth motion forced him to drop his gun. Warrick restrained him as he tried futilely to retrieve his gun from the ground where it now lay. He pushed at both CSI's over balancing them into the wall. Then there were two shots. Both made contact, one went through a window, causing it to shatter. Sara got up, trembling and ran straight into the arms of her friend, who held her tight to them. Brass came running over to the scene, he dialled nine-one-one of his cell, "This is Captain Jim Brass, we need an ambulance, quickly. We have an officer down,"