Chapter 8

Too Easy...

Sara sighed as she swung her long legs out of the car and took a deep breath of the clear, fresh air. She had been cooped up inside for far too long and had started climbing the walls several days ago. It was good to be back.

She knew that everyone in the lab now knew, or thought they knew, about the current situation with Grissom, still, even taking that in to account, the looks she was getting from everyone from CSIs to lab techs, curious to downright concerned, was beginning to worry her.

"Hey Russell, what's-"she began catching sight of her eccentric supervisor who she had missed more than she had expected.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded, goggling at her with an expression that would have been appropriate had the sheriff flounced, unexpectedly into his office and demanded an up-to-date look at his reports.

"Well it's nice to see you too." She said with a grin, falling in to step beside him. "I was always coming back today." She reminded him,

"Yeah but that was before the whole..." he muttered, waving his arms around to indicate everything she had been through over the last few weeks.

"It's alright. I'm good. You don't have to worry about me. I promise, I'm OK."

He sighed, rolling his eyes at her and informing her sternly, "Replacing the word 'fine' with 'OK' does not improve the accuracy of that statement."

She grinned at this, turning away and having the decency to flush slightly. She had missed this, more than she had thought she had.

"It's good to see you smile again." He said gently and meaning it. The time off had done her good, whatever her personal thoughts on it.

"Thanks." She replied, quietly, noting that even as they continued to walk, people were just stopping short of pressing their noses against the glass of the clear walls of the maze-like lab, turning on Russell she demanded, "Have I grown an extra head or something? Russell, what is going on?"

He sighed and gently took her arm, leading her towards his office that they had just arrived at.

"Come on, I'll make you a cup of tea and explain everything properly."

"Well I wasn't worried until you offered me tea..." she muttered, allowing him to steer her into a chair and deposit her there as he went to the kettle. "What's wrong?"

When she was greeted with an awkward silence as he stalled, making far too much of a big deal out of filling the kettle and taking cups from the cupboard, she said,

"OK, you're scaring me now. Just tell me, please, what's happened?"

Realising that he had no excuse to put it off now as he hovered by the kettle, willing it to boil faster and give me a reason to look away and give them both a second to brace themselves. It stubbornly refused.

He turned to her, hating the worry that he had stirred in her eyes so soon after she had returned, and perched on the edge of the desk, pushing his glasses up to his forehead to make way for the fingers that were now massaging his tired eyes.

"You know Basderic's trial is coming up right?" he began, treading on eggshells, wondering how he could break this to her without breaking her.

"Yeah. He had a date this morning to make an appeal for bail." She replied, studying her supervisor carefully,

"Judge granted it to him an hour ago." He sighed bluntly, deciding that there was no way he could dress up the ugly truth.

"Excuse me?" she hissed, hollowly, both of them now too caught up in their conversation to pay any heed to the hotly protesting kettle behind them, "He killed a man, he committed murder, tried damn hard to commit it twice and he made bail?" she demanded incredulously,

"I know, I know..." he said, trying to soothe her while he felt the contents of the bubbling kettle surging through his own veins, "It seems our the delightful Ronald has some friends in the justice system." He retorted sourly, deciding that they could both do with the tea.

"This? This is a lot of things but justice isn't one of them." She shot back darkly,

"Yeah, I know Sara." He muttered, distractedly, pouring the water into their cups, "But his trial's only a few weeks away and he has strict bail conditions. If he comes anywhere near you, he breaks them and he's back in custody to await trial."

"I feel so reassured." She spat, accepting the cup he handed to her, "He's a psychopath Russell, you know that. A violent, obsessive stalker with a compulsive hatred towards me, you think empty threats and pieces of paper will keep him away from me for long?"

"No." He sighed, running a hand through his hair, "This whole situation is crazy I know. He paused a moment before asking, sharply, "Are you on your own just now?"

"Sort of..." she mumbled, burying her face in her tea, "Gil's moving back in one entomology text book at a time but nothing's permanent yet."

"Yeah that's what I thought." He muttered, considering this for a second before he said, "You know, maybe you should come and stay with us for a few-"

"No." She said flatly,

"Come on Sara, hear me out, just for a few-"

"No, not for any." She told him, bluntly, "You hear me. I'm not letting him put anyone I care about in danger and since I've became rather attached to you recently, that includes you." She told him, forcefully, "I could move in with the entire Las Vegas police department and it wouldn't stop him. If he's going to come for me, then he'll come; I don't intend on using your family as a human shield. God knows what he would do to them...No, I am staying put."

He sighed, forgetting for a moment just how bloody stubborn she was, "Let me call Brass then, have him put a couple of guys with you, even just for tonight. He would probably set up camp on your porch if you let him..."

"No." She murmured, softly, "I've had enough strangers rummaging through my house without my permission recently. I don't want them there."

"Damn it Sara." He hissed, understanding where she was coming from but still becoming frustrated with her. He slammed the cup down onto his desk with more force than it deserved, causing the hot tea to slop out over his hands. He ignored it as he told her insistently, "Sara if he is going to come for you-"

"Then let him." She said quietly, her normally calm brown eyes burning with an intensity he had rarely seen in them before as she said, "He won't want to hurt me, not physically, not at first, it's not his style and not straight away. If he comes for me, then I call it in and he gets taken in to custody to await trial and we can all sleep a little easier at night. But I will not play into his hands and put anyone else at risk for my sake." She told him firmly, slipping her hands over his and gazing at him with eyes that left him in no doubt that her mind was made up and that she would not change it for all the tea in China.

"Why did I let myself become so damn attached to you Sara Sidle? You're going to be the death of me, you know that?" he asked, pulling her into a rough, impromptu, one-armed hug.

"Now then." She said, gently pulling herself free as she began in a business-like tone, "Did you have any actual work for me today or are we just going to sit around and drink tea all day?"

"Much as I like the sound of the latter, the criminals of Las Vegas do not agree with it." He said, eyes twinkling, "So, first things first, you want Nick or Finn?" he asked, grinning as he moved easily with her change in subject,

"I'll flip you for them." She replied with a wolfish grin, pulling a coin from her pocket,

"Alright." He said, returning the smile with one of his own, "Heads I take Nick tails I get Finn." She nodded in agreement and flipped it, allowing him to see, "Heads, I take Nick, Finn's all yours." He told her with a wink after examining the coin on her outstretched hand.

"I can work with that." She replied, smirking. It was no secret that the two women had become close over the last few months,

"There's a frightening thought, the two of you together..." he teased, pulling a face, "I pity your suspect."

"What do you have for us?" she asked, grinning and ignoring his light-hearted jibe.

He smirked and made to hand her the first assignment slip in the pile, reading it as he held it out, however he withdrew it reflexively before she had taken it.

"What?" she asked shrewdly, knowing that he had made the mistake of trying to protect her from it, instantly drawing her to it, "Whatever it is, I've dealt with it before in the past fifteen years and I'm going to have to deal with it again at some point." She told him gently, "If I've learned anything on this job it's that you can't be protected from all of the monsters in this world and least of all yourself."

He looked at her with solemn eyes that left her in no doubt as to how he felt about this. However he did not insult and disrespect her by going against her wishes and instead gave her details of the case,

"Neighbours heard shots fired at a house in Henderson, they called the police. When the officers arrived they found that the little girl had been found dead and was in the arm's of her father. No sign of the mother but there's been a history of domestic violence reports made by neighbours about him." He looked at her, his expression softening as he studied the look in her eyes, neither taking the case away from her nor forcing it on her as he asked quietly and evenly, "Do you want it?"

"I'll take it." She replied, tonelessly, accepting the assignment slip and taking the case against her better judgement and wishing that she had used his instead, "Where can I find Finn?"

"Strip club?" he suggested, mischievously, deciding to say no more on the subject.

"Shall I take that as 'Seattle code' for the locker room?" she asked with a strained smile.

He chuckled at this as she left his office, glad to have her back.

She did indeed find Finn in the locker room, that was apparently now the lab's version of a strip club, and quickly filled her in on their case.

"Great." She said, grinning as she grabbed her kit, glad to have something to do, "Girl's trip to Henderson."

Sara smiled because she knew, she knew the way it worked, the way it had to work for any of them to get by. Most people would have been shocked by Finn's words, by the apparent flippancy she had directed towards one of the most horrendous crimes they would ever have to work. But they were not most people.

Most people never had to deal with what they went through on a daily basis, only becoming involved on the worst day of their lives and only for a fraction of their lives.

They spent so much time in the darkness; hunting monsters in the shadows that whenever they were given the chance to have a little light int heir lives, however faint, however fleeting and however inappropriate it may seem to the rest of the world, they took it.

And so, Sara replied with a smile and a quip as she fished the keys from the other CSIs hands and told her playfully,

"I'll play taxi driver."

"You never cease to shock and amaze me Sara Sidle." Finn replied sardonically, grinning and rolling her eyes as she followed the brunette to the car park.

They had only been driving for about fifteen minutes, and frankly, Sara was amazed she lasted that long, before Finn broke the genial silence between hem as she turned concerned eyes on the other woman she had come to think of as a friend as she said

"So, what's going on with you and Grissom? Is everything OK?"

She winced as the younger CSI shifted, uncomfortably, and knew that she could have phrased that better with a sledgehammer and quickly attempted to fix her mistake,

"I'm sorry. That did not sound the way I thought it did in my head." She said awkwardly, "Why go mining with a chisel when you can use dynamite?" Sara teased lightly, relaxing the other woman as she laughed softly,

"I only meant, if you wanted to talk about it, about anything, I'm here for you, if that's what you want."

"I know what you meant, it's alright."

She had become used to the other woman's strange ways of working and rather blunt offerings of help. Her heart was in the right place, even if that tended to be her mouth, but she took a little bit of getting used to.

After having known people like Gil Grissom for so long when it could feel like playing in an international poker tournament just to deduce that he was offering to make her coffee; Finn's preferred method of simply ramming the coffee up her nose came as a bit of a shock to the system.

If she was honest with herself though, the only thing she had not become used to where the other woman was concerned was the connection that had developed between them.

They were polar opposites and as different as two people could be without succumbing to the rules of nature and simply repelling when they came too close. Finn was an open book who lived in a see-through world whose only feeble boundaries crumbled easily if someone so much as breathed on them. Sara on the other hand lived in a her own small, personal, very private bubble enclosed within the concrete, lead-lined walls appropriate in a prison with barred windows, steel doors, ten-foot high gates, guard dogs and more security protocols than a Swiss bank.

Still, however unlikely or inexplicable, they had formed a close relationship and Sara had found herself drawn to the other woman's infectious open personality, allowing herself to open up in turn.

"So, how are you holding up?" she asked gently,

"I'm fine..." she murmured, before catching herself and adding quickly, "Better than fine, I'm good."

"I see..." Finn said, rolling her eyes, "What about Grissom?"

She bit back the retort of 'what about Grissom?' and replied more civilly,

"I don't know really..." she sighed, "We agreed to give each other some time and a bit of space, ironically enough. But we're both in Vegas now so it's easier to just talk without having to plan around shifts and time zones and to reconnect."

"So he's in Vegas now? He's living here?" she asked

"yes. He'll still fly back every now and then I think for a while, just to tidy up things that he's already started over there; testify in some cases he's consulted on, that kind of thing. But no, he's in Vegas. For now..."

"For now?" she asked gently, "You expect him to leave again?"

"I don't know..." she replied, frustrated, "I don't know what I expect. I don't know what I know, what I think, what I hope anymore when it comes to him anymore. I just...It just feels too easy..." From the back of Finn's incredulous 'you must be joking' look she added, "I know, I know that sounds ridiculous. We've been to Hell and back to get here and 'here' isn't really anywhere but I just...If all it took was him coming back to Vegas just like that, to fix everything...I can't help asking myself why it didn't happen months ago."

"It didn't have any reason to happen months ago." She told her quietly, "It's easy to fall from a plane, it's not as easy to jump in the first place." She replied softly, "Maybe Basderic was just the push he needed to go for it."

"Maybe..." she murmured quietly, considering this.

She wanted it to be true, but she was not sure if that was enough anymore...

They arrived outside the house and quietly approached it, both of them tensed given the situation. They met two armed officers outside.

"I thought Russell said that there were already officers here." Finn said, as she and Sara climbed out of the car, surveying the desolate neighbourhood.

"He did." She confirmed, just as wrong-footed as Finn on this one.

They both hesitated, about to call it in when a loud scream, several bangs and a course shout echoed from the house.

Looking at one another, both women silently agreed as they simultaneously drew their guns and stepped onto the path. They paused outside the door and Finn called for backup as they waited to hear what would happen next.

The woman screamed again from inside the house and Sara snapped, throwing open the door and entering the house, gun raised.

"Sara!" Finn cried, swearing under her breath.

Still, she was not about to let her go in there alone and after a terse word to Brass to figure out how to fly and get his ass here now she too pushed her way inside.

Both women froze as they surveyed the scene. The husband was on his knees in the middle of the living room, blood oozing from just below his temple, hands on his head, his wife standing behind him looking pale and drawn, thick knotted scars and fresh bruises clearly visible on her wrists where the bracelets she usually wore to hide them had slipped down. She had a gun shaking in her outstretched hands, pointed at the back of her husband's head and seemed utterly oblivious to the presence of the two strangers in her house.

"Carla..." he said, cautioning,

"No." She snarled, slamming the gun into the back of his head, "You don't get to speak." She hissed, eyes widened madly,

"Carla. There are cops." He snarled,

She hit him again but his words caused her to look up, taking note of the two women standing in the doorway to her living room.

"Drop them." She snarled, pressing the gun into her husband's head, threateningly, eyes darting between them as she indicated the weapons in their hands, "I don't want to hurt you but frankly, my desire to kill him outweighs that right now."

Glancing at one another and deciding that it would be a bloodbath if they refused, they both carefully lowered their guns, knowing that Brass was on the way anyway and they only had to avoid being shot for a few minutes more.

"Hands on your heads..." she told them.

They both did as they were told.

"I'm sorry..." she whispered,

She raised the gun and pointed it at them.

A/N: I thank you for your patience with this fic! Writer's block is cured! At least for now. I never really intended this to happen in this chapter and I got a little carried away...Let me know how you think it went!