Disclaimer: I don't own them.

A/N: So, I'm very sorry I didn't update for so long, my lovely readers...

The boyfriend proposed Friday night, so it was a busy weekend of snuggling and calling every family member and friend conceivable. :)

Hopefully I'll be back to roughly every day again. Let me know what you think!


Chapter 5: The First Night

When Sara came in the first night, I discovered that I had learned to mimic her false bravado. Mine was certainly much more understated… much subtler, but it was there. I walked into the break room—Nick and Warrick were on the couch, showing clear signs of having just turned off their video game when they saw me heading down the hallway. Catherine and Sara sat at the table, coffee cups held in tensed hands. I grinned—I had a feeling that their friendship might always be tenuous.

Fortunately, we had an apparent kidnapping we'd just been contacted about, so there was little room for pleasantries or awkward moments. For this I was very grateful, although I'd been mentally preparing myself for interacting with Sara in front of the team ever since I'd asked her to join the team. I took her and Nick with me—I wanted Sara with me partly for selfish reasons and partly because I'd never actually seen her process a real scene, and I felt, as supervisor, I should make sure she knew and followed protocol. I figured, at least the first night, I shouldn't pair Warrick and Sara… so I took Nick, and gave Warrick and Catherine a hit and run.

I could tell simply by Sara's expression that she wanted the ransom note audio… but I did, truly, want to watch her process a scene… see how she played it out in her head. So I gave Nick the audio—I wasn't certain how he'd do with it, because he hadn't done a lot of audio in the past, but then, I didn't have any idea how Sara would do either…

Once at the scene, I immediately go to talk to the husband, who is understandably upset, direct Nick about what to do with the audio, and then make my way into the bedroom, where Sara is. Ever eager to impress me where forensics is concerned, she launches into her theory of how the crime had taken place.

"Cursory call… Looks like a professional job. Our guy bypasses the security system, surprises the wife in the back hall… drags her in here, she grabs onto the doorway—sign of struggle—no sign of sexual assault. He's in, they're out…" What was that on the carpet…? I bend down to inspect it, only half hearing the end of her evaluation of the scene. "Probably… egress through those doors."

The house was otherwise spotless… maybe the kidnapper had brought the dirt in on his shoes. Her voice cuts through my thoughts again, a little harder than normal, but still teasing. "Excuse me, is my evaluation interrupting you?"

I feign a lack of awareness—I had been momentarily distracted, but being unaware of Sara was something I found nearly impossible. "Huh? No, no, no… I barely heard you." I wondered vaguely if there was dirt outside… maybe it had nothing to do with the kidnapper. What kind of yard had they had…?

"…Glad I have a healthy ego. You find something interesting there?" Her voice is falsely-confident-Sara's. Slightly arrogant, slightly mocking… as if disdain could save her from the world's prying eyes and unfair judgments… and, perhaps, my feigned indifference.

"Dirt."

"You're so technical…I can hardly keep up, but...." I raise my eyebrows. Was she teasing again or actually upset I wasn't explaining the dirt I'd found in depth?

"Well, sorry, but, uh… Out of context, it's… just dirt." We need to see the backyard. Didn't she say the kidnapped had taken Mrs. Garris out that way…? I rise and move out the doors, vaguely aware of distant sirens. She follows me—a part of me knew she would—and I pause at the edge of the concrete, taking a cursory glance around the area. There's a curious smell—sickly sweet—in the air.

"Did you just slap on bad cologne?" I smile softly—she noticed too. I feel overwhelmed with pride—she had been my protégée as well as my lover during those first weeks of our relationship, during the conference in San Francisco. I couldn't help being excited at her success… her cleverness. But, of course, I could voice none of this.

"I never wear it; it interferes with the job." It's probably Halothane…

"It's almost sweet…" Ah, and there it was—the cloth emitting the smell. Not typical of a professional kidnapping…

"Hmm." I pick it up with forceps, smelling it and then turning and offering it to Sara—she sniffs it readily, without a hint of hesitation. It had taken me weeks to get Nick and Warrick comfortable using the less-obvious senses of smell and taste. You couldn't process a scene with eyes and ears alone.

"Can't be chloroform."

"Halothane, maybe." Most likely.

"We'll confirm it in GC mass spec." She pulls out an evidence bag and I slip the rag inside.

"'Looks like a professional job,' I think you said…?" I glance at her, my eyes playful. I know how hard it is for her to be wrong, even in very early speculation. She tilts her head back up to look me in the face, her eyes and mouth—which is, surprisingly, often as expressive as her eyes—reacting half playfully and half indignantly.

"Care to amend your evaluation?" She smirks now and nods as I continue with what she already knows, "I mean, if the guy leaves the rag he used to knock her out, he can't be much of a pro."

"I… keep trying to be your star pupil." And that was true—from day one, she'd wanted to live up to my expectations and exceed them, especially where forensics was concerned, but it was not limited to that.

"Sara, that was a seminar, this is real." The smile on her face doesn't move, but sticks strangely, and she looks down. I mentally kick myself—of course she would take that comment as a criticism, but I hadn't meant it that way… She'd been a CSI for how long now without me to check up her; she obviously knows this is real. I change the subject quickly.

"Pebbles, tile… the front is all concrete."

"No dirt. Context—there is dirt on the carpeting inside."

"In an otherwise spotless house…"

"You're saying… kidnapper dragged the dirt in."

"Possible. As of now that's about all we have so… I guess we follow the dirt."

It was a very long night after that. The husband—Mr. Garris–decided he wanted to give up his only bargaining chip to get his wife back—the ransom money—and so Brass followed him and the money, hoping the kidnapper would take the money and they could catch the guy. So far he'd been sloppy—leaving the rag behind—so there was every possibility that he'd mess up again.

In the mean time, I take the dirt back to the lab, catching Nick and sending him to meet up with Brass while the audio lab worked on the tape. There are traces of gold and cyanide in the sample—so I immediately find a map of the surrounding area, looking for gold mines near power lines—there had been a buzzing on the tape—that were close to where the kidnapper had wanted the ransom money left. There are only three.

Sara comes in, in that moment, and never one to miss an opportunity to teach, I immediately begin my explanation, guiding her from microscope to map and through the deductive reasoning process, explaining how a case with a dead miner years before had taught me that miners used powered cyanide to draw gold to the surface. When I told her that the man had died simply by passing out on the ground and the cyanide leaching into his system, her eyes seemed… disturbed and amused, all at once.

"Gruesome, Grissom." I looked away at the use of my last name, which still hurt me though I had brought it on myself.

"You know, it's funny, but every case teaches me something about the next…" I say, trying to make up for my comment at the crime scene in which I'd implied she hadn't known the difference between a mock scene and reality… trying to tell her, in not so many words, that she was a great CSI and could only get better…

I'm not entirely sure she got it, but her eyes seemed lighter, after that.

We followed the dirt—calling for a helicopter to take us around and look for body heat around the three mines we had located on the map. Maybe we could find where Mrs. Garris was being kept. We were forced into a close proximity in the helicopter—I could smell her hair, and her skin, and the hardly-scented mousse she used to control her halo of curls. I focus instead on what we're seeing, explaining everything from coyotes to how many legs they have, as if she would assume a heat-sensor would only recognize two-legged beings.

And then, swinging around the mine again, we see her—clearly bound and struggling, and… underground.

"My god, she's below the surface…"

I hear Sara yelling in my ear—taking charge because I apparently have forgotten how. "Okay, let's land! Take her down! Down!"

We land and rush out, screaming over the sound of the helicopter blades, desperately hoping that she'll hear us… and she does. There's screaming a moment later and we dig frantically, until the ground team arrives and a large wooden crate is unearthed. Taking a pick, I pry open the crate and see the poor woman lying in a dirty hole in the ground, left to die.

"Oh my god." I hear Sara murmur beside me as probably ten hands reach in to pull the woman out. I cut the duct tape from her wrists and try to reassure her as best I can before sending her off to the paramedics.

It's at this point that I look back to Sara. She is looking down, her hair flying chaotically around her face from the helicopter and the desert winds and the turmoil of the moment. I watch her glance back at the woman, a strange, pained look on her face.

I can't help it—I don't even think before my hand moves to her face, cupping her cheek the way I have every time I have seen that look cross her face. "You okay?" She looks startled, but she doesn't pull away. Her eyes are hollow as she sighs, shaking her head.

"It never ceases to amaze me what people do to each other."

She moves away from me, giving directions about transporting the crate back to the lab, but the emptiness stays with me, lingering in her wake. I knew Sara was very… empathetic towards victims, but she had never in the past showed me how personally their plights affected her.

Although, burying someone in a box in a desert, alive, was definitely one of the worst ways to go… one of the cruelest forms of death to inflict upon another person. Hell, even I was more affected by this than normal… and she was a fairly new CSI.

I'm sure that's all it was. …I hoped that was all it was. I didn't want Sara to burn out… and I didn't want to ever see that emptiness in the chocolate depths of her eyes again.