Thanks so much to everyone who's reviewed so far! I love hearing from every one of you. Sorry for the slight delay – ive had loads of homework and The Best I Ever Had my other story is on a roll. This chapter is a bit of a filler and a set up but I know where I'm going so all is good :-)
All mistakes are mine.
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Chapter Eight # Life Goes On #
Two and a half months later, Nick went back to work. It took him a little while to get back into the swing of things, especially since Catherine had been forced to leave with the sincere promise of returning for Christmas. By the second week he felt like it was working.
Sara had eventually managed to convince Eli that she was okay by continuously coming home in one piece. There had been a small drama when it was time for him to go back to kindergarten, though.
"Okay, Eli, I'll see you later." Grissom smiled, hugging the little boy. Sara had desperately tried to get off work but she was stuck in a room with a suspect who would only talk to her on a missing persons case and they were running out of time.
"No!" Eli cried when Grissom tried to let go.
"You gotta go with your teacher now, Eli."
"Please, no!" Eli begged as his teacher came closer. "I don't wanna go to school, I wanna go home!"
"Frankie said you like your teacher."
"I do but I wanna stay at home!"
"Why?" Grissom asked.
"I don't wanna go!"
The teacher reassured Grissom that it was normal after trauma, but it still physically hurt Grissom's heart to hear the little boy wailing as he was taken away. Two hours later the teachers gave up and called Sara at work. When she arrived Eli was crying and screaming for his mommy, perched on top of a cupboard.
"How did he get up there?" She asked as she ran in.
"Another child cut her knee; I had to turn my back on him for a minute." The teacher sighed regretfully.
Sara nodded, and slowed as she walked up to the wailing five year old. "Eli?"
He didn't even glance down at Sara as he screamed. "I want my mommy!"
"I know, but you gotta come down now." Sara said softly.
Eli looked down and wiped his nose on his sleeve."Sara?" He snuffled as if it was finally sinking in that she was actually here. "Sara?"
"I'm here..."
"Sara!" He wiped his eyes, but suddenly he realised how high he truly was and he began to wail once more. "Sara! Help me, I can't get down, I'm scared- I - I - I-"
"It's okay, Eli." Sara held up her arms. "I've got you."
"Sara!" He whimpered, leaning over the edge. He cried out as he tumbled off into her waiting arms.
"It's okay, Eli, I've got you." He sobbed into her hair and Sara took him straight home. She talked gently to Eli that night for hours and the next day there were no problems.
Reuben had had a couple more seizures but none violent enough to hospitalise him. Both he and Loeila had grown considerably, as had little Kristy, who was now four months old. There was a little drama in the Sanders household when both of the seven month old twins started teething, but both Lindsey and Greg managed it admirably.
So, seventeen weeks after Cassie McBride appeared at the crime lab, Nick stared up at the latest crime scene, a large family home in a gated community. Brass came out of the house and approached the CSIs, greener than anyone had seen him in a while.
"Ten dead." He said gruffly. "Mom, Dad, three daughters aged 17 years, 8 years and 3 months, four sons, 14 years old, 12 year old twins and 18 months and a nanny."
"Oh my god..." Sara covered her mouth as if she wanted to be sick, and the others stared at the floor.
After Brass set the scene for DB, the supervisor took control. "Okay, Sara, I want you with Mom and Dad in the master bedroom. Nick, you take the eldest daughters room, next door to mom and dad on the right, the eight year old is in there too. Greg, you cover the fourteen year old and the nanny, there're in the third room. Morgan, can you take the twins. Finn, Wendy, I want you two to deal with the rest of the house. I'll take the babies."
Everyone nodded mutely and began to work on their allotted rooms. There was dismally little evidence to find, despite the CSIs combing through the house with a fine toothed comb for eight hours.
Exhausted, they returned to the crime lab and began dropping off evidence into various labs. After another three hours of processing they met in the layout room to discuss what they had.
"So what have we got?" DB asked almost reluctantly.
"There were no fingerprints at all throughout the house, someone has cleaned everything. There were some hairs that could possibly belong to our killers, and Henry's testing that and all the blood pools in case some of it doesn't belong to the family but at first glance we're not about to get lucky. There was a powdery blue trace on the victims; Hodges is running it now, along with some broken glass Wendy found in the living room. Morgan and Finn found matching shoe treads belonging to a pair of size eleven Doc Martens both inside and outside of the house that weren't a match to any of the shoes we collected in the house. Other than that there's not very much evidence at all." Sara summarised.
"Also, all the bodies were placed in each room post mortem. They were all killed in the parent's bedroom, and tied up before that. Apart from the babies." Wendy pointed out.
"I did find a little recording device in Bethany, the 17 year olds room." Nick interjected. "It gives a fairly good timeline." He put a small recorder and pressed play.
"Okay, go!" a teenagers voice began
"Um...what do I say again?" A younger voice asked.
"Your name!" the first girl hissed.
"Oh, right! I'm Lara Rodgers and I'm eight years old. I'm gonna be singing with my big sister Bethany Rodgers. She's seventeen. Is that okay?"
"Perfect, Lara!"
After a few seconds pause the girls began singing. Suddenly, Lara screamed.
There were several other screams and scuffling noises and suddenly all the noises were muffled.
"Archie thinks this is when they were taken into the parent's room." Nick added, letting the tape continue.
It sounded like all ten people were crying.
"What are you doing?" a strong but afraid male voice – Kevin Rodgers, the father – cried. Then two of the cries ceased.
"They suffocated the babies first..." Nick commentated sadly.
Two gunshots rang out and fresh wails emphasised the nothingness that came from Lara's cries.
"Lara was shot next, point blank in the head, dead before she hit the floor. Then the twins, Joey and Jay were hung. Bethany and Matt, the teenagers' throats were slit after that if we go by the screams or lack of. Then the nanny was shot, back of the head. Then the mom, Ashley was raped and stabbed and then about an hour later, dad Paul Rodgers was shot in the stomach and left to bleed out staring at his dead wife and children. The anonymous 911 call was made half an hour after he was shot, according to the tape."
There was silence for a moment.
"That's horrible." Sara's voice broke slightly.
"I think it's pretty safe to assume that the father was the primary target." Russell sighed. "They made him watch his family die."
Greg curled his hands around a paper cup. His phone felt like it was burning in his pocket. "S'cuse me." He stood up quickly and strode out of the room, flying into the locker room. He banged his head against his locker for a second, before ripping his phone out of his pocket.
"Hello, Sanders Household?"
"Lindsey, it's Greg."
"Hi Greg. Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, yeah, I just...are the twins okay?"
"Yeah they're asleep, they're fine." Greg heard the door open. "Yep. Both absolutely fine."
"Thanks Lindsey. I may be a little late tonight."
"No problem."
Greg said goodbye to his faithful babysitter and hung up the phone, returning to the layout room.
"Sorry." He sat down.
"No problem." Russell nodded, understanding. "So, any enemies?"
Morgan's phone buzzed before DB had even finished talking. She glanced at the caller ID and frowned. "Russell, can I take this?"
"Yeah." Russell nodded. Morgan made an apologetic face and left the room. Five minutes later she came back into the room.
"That was Lucas O'Conner."
Russell's eyebrows widened. "Really?"
"Who?" Wendy frowned.
"A guy that I helped back in LA, he's a gang go between, takes messages, drugs, guns between the gangs. He's turned informant, and he says he's got information but he can't say over the phone. He's being watched and his lengthy phone calls are being monitored."
"So how is he giving you information?" Greg asked suspiciously.
"He wants to go on a date."
CSIVCSIVCSIV
The clock read five past one as a pretty, petite blonde waited outside of a nondescript Italian Restaurant. A Texan man pushed past her, laughing, his arm around a woman with curly blonde hair. A few moment later short, wiry man turned up.
"Hey."
The petite woman smiled "Hey, you."
"Shall we go in?" The man looked nervous.
"Sure." They took a table two tables away from the Texan and his apparent girlfriend.
"So, what have you got for me?" Morgan asked in a low tone.
"First things first. Where's your back-up?"
"The loud mouth Texan and his girl." Morgan's mouth twitched. She didn't mention Greg and Sara sitting on the other side of the diner.
"Wow, she's hot..."
"Hey, Lucas. Eyes on me!"
"Sorry." The guy looked sheepish.
"Info, dude, or this date's over."
"Okay. Slow down..." Morgan waited patiently as Lucas continued. "I knew Paulie, he was a good guy. Wasn't in with the gangs, not one little bit. Then his good for nothing brother, Lennie, shows up, gets in with the Dragons to a whole heap of shit with the Chimeras." O'Conner explained. "Drugs, chicks, guns, the whole lot. So anyways, the other day Lennie calls Paul, all drunk and shitting bricks 'cause he's just been in a gunfight off the strip, so being the good brother Paulie goes to pick Lennie up. On the way back, Lennie freaks when he sees a minibus with Jose Martinez, head of the Chimeras, and his family and they ended up crashin'. Jose's girl and his kid died, Jose saw the whole damn thing. So Lennie convinces Paul to drive on or he'll get shot, then flips on his brother. I'd bet my ass that Jose Martinez had something to do it."
"Okay..." Morgan said slowly. "Why are they watching you so close?"
"Coz I'm a go between. They always think I'm up to something."
Morgan nodded. "Thanks. Jose Martinez, head of the Chimeras. Did they report the accident?"
Lucas snorted. "Like hell! Jose wouldn't let the cops take his family away. He's very protective over them."
"You said his kid died? How old is Martinez?"
"Like thirty somethin'. Has five kids now he lost little Calíope."
"Five kids? Isn't that a lot for a gang leader?"
"He's a family man 'bove all else. He was married to Lana an' all. I think his oldest is like seven. Calíope was four."
"Any ideas where I can find him?"
"Nope, sorry. The Chimeras move a lot."
Morgan nodded. "Anything else? Any ideas where he might have buried his wife and daughter, it might help..."
"He took the bodies back to Mexico with his kids and buried 'em someplace secret. Didn't even tell his men. He came back yesterday."
"And the Rodgers' were killed." Morgan nodded.
"Yep. An' Paul had nothin' to do with it."
A wave of sympathy threatened to smother Morgan as she realised what the poor man had gone through.
"Jesus..." she shook her head. "Nice talkin' to you, Lucas but if you don't have anything else, I gotta go..."
"I'll call you if I hear anything." Lucas nodded.
Morgan stood up. "Great."
Lucas stood up next to her and kissed her on the cheek. Sara and Greg also stood up and began walking towards the table hand in hand.
A gunshot ran out through the diner and the patrons screamed in horror. Lucas O'Conner fell to the floor, a gunshot wound in his head and several more shots fired. Without a moment's hesitation Greg launched across a nearby table and knocked a shocked Morgan to the floor.
After a few moments the gunshots stopped.
"Are you okay?" Greg asked Morgan shakily, still pinning her to the floor.
Morgan looked across at O'Conner's empty eyes and the blood pouring from the hole in the forehead. She put a hand to her stomach.
Greg grabbed her bloody hand. "Oh my god! Nick, Sara, Finn!"
When he received no response Greg looked up. The others were still down low, hands on guns. "What's wrong, G?"
"Morgan's hit!"
"M'okay." Morgan mumbled, shaking her head.
Breathing heavily, Greg pulled up Morgan's top slightly with extreme care to reveal a hole just above her hip.
"Oh my god!"
"Greg m'fine..." she murmured, sighing, her eyes fluttering dangerously.
"Uh uh, Morgan, you need some help." Greg swallowed. Sara and Finn crawled over as Nick began reached for his radio.
"Ow..." Morgan whimpered as Greg put his hands on the wound.
"Sorry, Morgan. You've gotta stay awake for me, okay?"
Morgan nodded wearily, wincing in pain. Her hand flew up into the air. Sara placed her hands next to Greg's and pushed them away gently, taking over from Greg's hands. He looked at her and she leaned in close.
"Take her hand, Greg."
Greg nodded, reaching over and taking a hold of Morgan's flying hand. Morgan smiled wanly, afraid of going to sleep.
"You're gonna be okay." Greg smiled.
She nodded. "I know."
CSIVCSIVCSIV
Four and a half hours later, Greg arrived home. "Lindsey, I am so sorry."
The tired brunette shook her head. "It's fine. Is Morgan okay?"
"She's gonna be fine." Greg reassured Lindsey.
"Good. I remember the shifts, Greg. It's fine." Lindsey nodded.
"This is looking like it's gonna be a big case."
"Then I'll be on call." Lindsey smiled.
"Thank you." Greg smiled back. Lindsey left the house with a wave.
As the door closed, Loeila started cry. Exhausted, but yearning to see his kids Greg headed into their bedroom.
"Hey, guys..." Greg lifted the seven month old out of his crib. After five minutes of solid crying, Greg started to worry.
"What's wrong, Lola, hey?" Greg muttered. He glanced down at Reuben, who was lying on his stomach chewing on a teething ring. "My mom would probably sing to you, but I don't think that any of my songs would fit..."
Loeila continued to cry.
"Don't look down, don't look back,
I am beside you.
Close your eyes, know I'm here..." Greg sang quietly.
"I know it's hard, to let go all that defines you
You feel like you'll never be whole again." Deciding to leave out the screaming part of the song Greg delved straight into the chorus.
"In my arms, you'll be fine
I never let go
All you've lost, will come again.
Just stay with me.
Never look back, never again, it's over.
Everything ends, here in my arms."
Loeila slowly stopped crying. She smiled and opened her mouth. That moment immediately imprinted in Greg's mind for the rest of his life.
"Dada!"
I just realised that there was no Kristy in this chapter, sorry :-( in fact there was little of the babies at all! I'll make up for it next chappy I swear!