Title: Killing Time

By: Filter (S. Lopez)

Fandom: CSI: Vegas

Pairing: NA

Rating: PG-13 to R+, esp violence

Warnings: I may have blown some medical stuff. Note time as story goes on. Grissom torture.

Archive. : If you want it; just let me know where.

No spoiler warnings. All totally made up. Thanks to the PTB and creative forces, esp. Billy Petersen's gift of Gil.

Summary: Gil never takes a day off because these kinds of horrible, from-the-past things happen to him.

Note: Well, here's the first CSI fic I've ever written, over a six hour marathon session late Valentine's Day/ next AM. I suppose it could be easily slashed. Huge apologies if I'm overstepping by this not being slash, but someone requested Gil-torture, and this pretty much sprang full-formed from my head ala Athena. Enjoy! Feedback loved!

 

Stifling a yawn, Gil Grissom couldn't figure out why his eyes were hurting so badly. He was lying on his couch watching rain outside his window, wondering about angle and force per square inch each drop carried when it hit, it wasn't like he was staring down the barrel of a microscope.

Reaching up, he pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. It was then he realized he hadn't been blinking. *Well, that would do it,* he thought to himself.

The head midnight shift CSI wasn?t used to his days and nights off. When he'd fallen asleep in his desk chair Catherine had poked him awake and told him to take one of his days off which he was supposed to have every week.

"We've been really slow anyway, Gil," she had told him. "Go the hell home and take tomorrow off."

"It could explode any time, Catherine, you know that. This is Las Vegas," he had protested feebly.

"You're no good to us if you fall asleep on evidence at a scene. Go."

And with much grumbling he'd taken the day off, slept a good deal of the daytime hours, and of course was awake as the night fell. He had fed his tarantulas, petted them a little, checked his email several times in case someone wanted something from him over at the lab. Catherine had yelled at him the last time he'd called to check in, so he'd let the phone alone for a while. He had finished every crossword puzzle in his home. Grissom was bored, and he wasn't used to it.

He rolled off the couch and went to get a drink. On the way he passed the treadmill he had bought on a complete whim a month ago and which had only been used to walk Nick's dog the one time Nick had to leave the Lab with Grissom. A fine dusting of dog fur still clung to the belt.

He got a mango juice drink out of the refrigerator and looked through his kitchen at the treadmill. Gil knew he was out of shape in general, though he didn?t feel his job demanded he be able to run a marathon.

"On the other hand," he said to himself, walking over to the machine. He was remembering the one time recently he'd actually had to hop a fence to look for evidence, and how Warrick had chuckled and given Gil a push on one dangling leg to get him over. Gil had insisted it was only because the fence was ten feet high, but Warrick had given him a knowing look after leaping over effortlessly.

Since then Gil had thought about starting to run, and had been trying to rationalize doing so. *It can't be because I'm feeling fat,* he kept thinking.

With a grin Gil realized he had his answer. He padded into his bedroom, laced on his running shoes, tucked his shirt into his shorts, and went out to jump on the treadmill.

"I'm going to see what effect exercise has on the average man when he has to exert himself immediately," he said aloud. Any time Grissom could use science and analysis as an excuse, he found it easy to do things he found uncomfortable.

Flicking the machine on, Grissom frowned at the readouts. He pressed a few buttons, jumped as the belt started to move, and began to jog slowly.

When he was younger, Grissom had enjoyed running. He had refused to join his high school track team but ran anyway with the cross-country runners. It was one of the few times the overly cerebral young man felt open and free. By the time he graduated high school he was running ten or twelve miles every day, six days a week. It made it easy to get to remote locations with equipment when he started doing unofficial work for the LVPD. After a few months people were used to the skinny, intense kid with a jerry-rigged backpack of forensic equipment jogging down gullies and over dunes, wreckage, and building equipment to collect evidence.

He smiled a little remembering his youthful physique, and increased the speed a little. Sweating and breathing hard, Grissom ignored the pain and observed his body with detachment.

"Huh....took ten minutes for breathing to increase dramatically" legs tiring around twelve minutes at 4.5 miles per hour. He spoke out loud as he ran, interested in his heart rate's increase and pulse.

At forty-five minutes Gil looked down at his watch, lost his balance, and flew backward off the machine. He sprawled on the floor, dazed, and laughed. He was coated in sweat, flushed, but feeling pretty good. Carefully he got up and shook himself, turned off the machine, and went to shower. He thought that maybe he'd be able to go back to sleep after the shower...maybe the run had tired him out.

Grissom came back onto the living room rubbing his hair with a towel, wearing the joke handcuff boxers the CSI team had given him for his last birthday. He hadn't seen the joke, and no one had been surprised. Before he stretched out on the couch again he turned on his stereo and Nina Simone flooded the room. He turned it up to near-annoying level and flopped down on the sofa. Within minutes, Grissom was asleep.

*

Quiet wheels rolled across the alley behind Grissom's house. The van went down another four blocks and stopped. The 830 darkness hid the tallish man from view as he got out and walked back to the alley. He crept silently up the alley until he was at Grissom?s back yard, then looked about and hopped the low fence and walked on the cement path to the door. He knew there was no dog, no alarm, and no one else.

The back door opened with a silent sigh after the latch had been lifted by a thin steel shim. The man left it open and before going in he shook out two shoe covers from his jacket pocket, slipped them on, and stepped inside.

He knew the lights might be dim, and was not surprised at the loud music. With unerring precision he moved past the treadmill, around the low divider, and found what he was looking for.

Grissom was sleeping on his back, one arm dangling off the couch and the other thrown over his eyes. He had pulled the blanket from the back of the sofa hastily over him and was in REM sleep.

The man pulled a balaclava up over the lower half of his face and pulled his hood up over his head. He watched the sleeping man for a minute or more, taking in the rising chest and its gentle fall, the tousled, damp hair, the tan skin. Then, perfectly silently, he reached into his jacket and extracted a gun fitted with a silencer. He held it pointed towards Grissom?s head while he reached into his pants pocket. Withdrawing a small gun-like object, he squatted down until he was at Grissom's eye level.

"Hello, Dr. Grissom," he said softly, mouth close to Gil's ear.

*

Grissom's dreams were always remarkably ordered, stories that had a beginning and end, and his present one was no different. He was at an evidence site with Catherine, sifting through leaves on the ground for anything to help them find out where a body had been dragged from. He was shining his flashlight at a clump of leaves when he felt Catherine come up behind him close, lean over, and whisper "Hello, Dr. Grissom."

Something about it felt wrong in the dream, which instantly made Grissom?s unconscious mind set off an alarm. He groaned in his sleep, slid his hand off his eyes, and opened them.

He came instantly awake and automatically began to rise when he felt the silencer press into his temple.

"Just back off, Doctor."

Gil tried to place the voice, person, anything...the person was remarkably anonymous in black clothes. He raised his hands automatically and nodded. "I'm not moving," he said. He was happy
his voice was clear.

"True." The man had to raise his voice slightly to be heard over the music.

"What do you want?" Gil asked, and was rewarded with a muffled laugh. He felt cold all of a sudden.

"You. Just you," the man said. He gestured with the silencer. "Push the blanket down."

"I don't have anything here, if that's what you want," Grissom said somewhat weakly. He began to feel terror growing on him. The silencer jerked back to his head.

"Move the blanket."

Hand shaking, Grissom pushed the blanket down to his waist, body cold. He hated the exposed feeling, and hated his fear. The silencer moved closer to his head and he closed his eyes.

"Don't worry. Turn away from me. Do it."

"Please," Grissom whispered, shivering now with fear. He had no idea what was about to happen but every synapse in his brain was screaming danger. "Please don't."

The gun whipped out and connected above Gil's left eye. He gasped in pain and automatically brought both hands to his face. "Do it," the voice said again, still level.

Cursing the whimper that escaped his lips, Grissom shifted onto his side. He kept his hands over his face and tried to still his body. Panic gripped him as he felt steel touch the back of his neck, press in, and then begin to slide down his spine.

*Please, please just kill me if you?re going to, please kill me, please, please!* Grissom kept saying to himself. A panicked sigh escaped his lips as the barrel met the waistband of his boxers. A short slide later, and Gil knew he wasn't going to get off just dead.

The man smiled under his mask. He pressed the barrel of the air syringe against Grissom's body, holding the elastic of the boxers aside with the gun, and pulled the syringe trigger. He watched
Grissom's body jump forward, then relax. He pushed the elastic back in place, pocketed the syringe, and stepped back.

Grissom was still waiting when he heard the music soften. Scared to move, it took a few moments for him to hear the voice. "Turn back."

The man watched Gil move carefully back, sweating and obviously terrified of him. "You're gonna get a cold, sweating like that."

"Why?" Grissom whispered weakly through his hands. "Why?"

The man knelt down carefully and looked closely at Grissom. He prodded the hands covering his face with the gun barrel and looked into terrified eyes. To Grissom, they felt very much like he always believed his eyes felt to an insect he was about to skewer with a mounting pin.

With unblinking eyes, David Emerson looked at Grissom intently. He knew Grissom didn?t know who he was, had no idea what was happening or why, and was absolutely terrified of him. He found the idea appealing.

"Oh, in time. In time, Dr. Grissom. About 36 hours, as a matter of fact. Feel anything yet?"

Grissom stared back, confused, and then realized he was feeling very tired and a little dizzy. He blinked, looked down, then back. "What...did you give me?" he asked.

"A little something to put you to sleep. After all those hours at work, not a bad thing, huh?"

"I don't?" Grissom began, then stopped. The tranquilizer was working. His head felt thick, his body heavy and weak. With supreme effort, he tried to imprint on his brain everything that had happened, and all that had been said. He dropped his hands from his face and with one nail on his right hand scratched his leg hard. He then scratched the couch leather hard, groaning to cover the sound. He watched Emerson watch him with detachment.

"I know. Well, I better get that bag out of your closet. Don't go anywhere," Emerson said, standing and striding directly into Grissom's bedroom. He pulled the large duffel bag out of Grissom's closet and went back, smiling a little at Grissom?s weak attempts to sit up. "Whoa, careful there!"

Stepping over quickly he caught Grissom right before he fell off the couch. The sweat on the man?s body surprised him, and he wiped his hands on his pants. "Man, Doc. Need to take a shower after all that."

Grissom watched him hazily, eyes drooping again and again. He saw the man open his duffel bag, spread it out on the floor, and the last thing he saw was Emerson holstering his gun in his shoulder rig and coming toward him. He was trying to digest the fact Emerson had to have been in his house before and knew entirely too much about Gil Grissom.

*

"Ya know, you tell the man to stay home and get some sleep....damn!"

Sara Sidle and Nick Stokes stared over at Catherine as she clicked her cell phone shut. "Maybe he *is* sleeping, Cath. Think of that?" Sara asked. They were about to begin a night shift and were gathered in the lounge. Without Grissom around Catherine was head CSI, and they enjoyed annoying her...she was easier to ruffle than the big boss.

"Whatever. He was calling all last shift when I sent him home. I was going to tell him maybe I'd come by after this shift and give him the good gory news, if there is any. He hates time off."

"Yeah, buddy. Last time he had a day off he came back pissed as hell," Nick said as Warrick came in. "Bout time, Warrick."

"Yeah yeah. Grissom ain't around, you gonna be the head bitch?" Warrick asked. Catherine cleared her throat.

"No, that would be me. Let's get to work, folks."

The shift only dealt with one stabbing victim, Warrick and Nick taking the job. Sara and Catherine did paperwork and checked lab reports for the shift. They were bored to tears.

Warrick and Nick came back in record time from the scene. "What up, guys?" Sara asked as they came in. The guys sighed in tandem.

"It looked like it might be juicy, semen and blood, whole nine yards...and then the wife came back from the liquor store and confessed to the whole thing. Sheesh," Nick said. "Maybe it's only when
Grissom is around that stuff goes down."

"Maybe. Ah well. Let's finish the paperwork and wind down for the man," Catherine said.

"You going over after work?" Sara asked. She had more than once noticed Grissom and Catherine exchanging looks.

"Yeah, thought I'd give him some news...he has to be going stir crazy right now."

 

10:30 pm

Grissom's eyes flickered open a little and immediately he thought he was blind. A few seconds later he realized he wasn't, but he couldn't see in front of him and the air around him was stifling. He could feel rough canvas all around him, his legs bent, handcuffs around his ankles. His wrists were handcuffed as well, behind his back. Before his mind began to really panic, Gil imagined he was in his own duffel bag, probably in a moving vehicle. Then, he panicked.

David Emerson drove Grissom?s truck, the owner in the back, a few miles below the highway speed limit. It was fairly busy for 1030 at night, and he kept a close eye out for police. He could hear muffled screams from the duffel bag in the back, and pushed the cd into the player, smiling as Wagner blasted out of the speakers.

An hour passed, though Grissom didn?t know it. He had screamed himself hoarse, particularly when he heard "Ride of the Valkyries" begin, and when his voice had given out he'd tried to calm himself by thinking of the biggest words he could and spelling smaller words out of them. He was up to onomatopoeia when he felt the vehicle stop. Suddenly, his senses were wired.

Emerson hopped out of the truck and pulled the back open. The duffel bag was moving a little, and he was satisfied Grissom was alive. He pulled the bag to him, grunted a little as he shouldered it, and walked over to the door of the smallish house.

Opening the old lock with a key, Emerson shut the door behind him and turned a corner into the kitchen. Six steps took him to the basement door and he opened that and flicked on the overhead light before starting down.

Grissom could feel the atmosphere and height change and tried to shift around...his head was pointing down now and the blood was pounding in it. He stopped when he heard a soft "uh-uh, Doctor."

At the bottom of the stairs Emerson hit another light switch. The basement area was flooded with bright light and he looked around with satisfaction.

The basement was 12x12, dirt-floored, without windows. Near the back wall was a three by seven by two rectangle in the dirt, plastic sheeting on the bottom of the area covering a drain. A metal grate leaned against the back wall, meant to be fastened over the rectangle and secured with steel bars and a padlock which fitted into rings set into concrete around the rectangle.

Emerson set the bag down carefully, aware Grissom was now awake and potentially dangerous. Emerson, unlike many other people, did not discount Grissom?s strength. He knew the generally mild countenance hid strength and, more dangerous still, high intelligence. Drawing his gun again, he pulled the long zipper across the bag and stepped back.

When Grissom saw light beginning to slash the darkness, he braced himself to either shrink back or fling his body forward. Bound as he was, he still had no intention of going quietly...he was too scared and too tired. When the zipper was all the way open he tried to unbend his legs and found he couldn't move them. He pushed against the floor with his hands and struggled out of the duffel bag.

Emerson watched, gun drawn, as Grissom worked his way out and painfully straightened his legs. The CSI lay panting and blinking back tears of pain before glaring at Emerson. His legs tingled and cramped as blood flooded back in. After being half-suffocated in a bag for hours, Grissom was less scared than furious.

"Doctor Grissom, your anger is going to get you killed. Angry men do stupid things," Emerson said mildly.

"Who?" Grissom swallowed hard, mouth dry, "...who are you?"

He watched as Emerson squatted down, gun pointing casually at Gil's chest. "David Emerson. The last person you'll ever see."

Immediately Grissom began to flick through the name sin his head, and came up with John T. Emerson, 1997, murder, two victims. Grissom remembered he had had the misfortune to be gathering evidence by himself in a remote site when John Emerson tried to kill him with a
garrote. Then, Grissom had been faster and a little more angry in general...he'd managed to get free with several kicks and punches and ran away, dialing 911 on his cell phone as he ran. The evidence he collected there and elsewhere, and his own encounter with Emerson, had ensured a conviction. Citizens of Nevada had ensured Emerson's death. Grissom had been left with a deep scar on his neck from the encounter and a little more wisdom.

"John?" Gil finally asked. He felt the fear returning.

Emerson smiled. "You're good. John always has said you're good. Yeah. David Emerson, pleased to meet you."

"But why?"

"Well, in about, oh?" Emerson looked at his watch, "....18 hours my little brother will be executed. They do it at 5am here, you know. It's 1130 pm-ish right now. And, at 5am...not this one coming up, oh no, the day after tomorrow--you'll be dead too. That is, dead unless your little group of investigators finds you first."

Grissom's eyes widened. "You're kidding," he finally said.

"Oh, no. So, we better get going now. Here, let me give you a hand," Emerson said, and stepped forward with a jump, launching a hard kick at Gil's midsection.

Grissom doubled up with a grunt and rolled over several times. One more nudge was necessary before Grissom's body fell into the shallow rectangular pit. He felt the cold plastic under him as he landed on his stomach. He didn?t have time to turn before the grate was slammed down and the bars set and locked. Grissom turned his head enough to see up through the wide metal bars of the grate at David Emerson. The man was smiling.

"Well, enjoy yourself. I'll be back later." Emerson left with a whistle as Grissom screamed incoherently.

Catherine wondered at the music wafting lightly out of Grissom's house when she got there. He hadn't come to the door at her knock and insistent ringing of his doorbell. She frowned and wondered if he had been experiencing hearing loss again. She made her way around to the back, looking, and froze when she saw the open back glass door.

Catherine jumped the low fence and crept across the grass, looking around intently. She noted the garage door was closed, the lights in Grissom's living room on. She hoped he was just letting in some air.

She called his name when she got to the door, gun drawn. She glanced quickly in, saw nothing, then spun into the house. Nothing.

Catherine walked slowly in, gun turning with her head. No Gris, nowhere. She turned off the stereo and stood in the living room. She saw the blanket on the couch, a glass on the coffee table. No Grissom. She walked into his bedroom, calling his name. Nothing.

"What the hell?" she said under her breath. A cold feeling was creeping over her. She stepped into the living room again and dialed Nick Stokes.

At home, Nick bolted out of the shower and cursed until he juggled his cell phone out of his jacket. "Yeah, Stokes!" he said.

"Nick, it's Cath. Uh, there?s something a little weird here at Grissom's place." Catherine wondered how to describe it. "He's...not here."

Nick laughed. "He can drive, Catherine. Probably took off somewhere."

"Even if he did that, Nick....his back door was open. And...it just feels wrong in here. His jacket's hung up, cell phone's on the table...something's up."

Nick wiped water from his face. "You sure?

"Nick, he never goes out without his cell. Too afraid one of us might call him. Will you....will you come over here? I'm gonna look around some more."

"Well....okay. Be careful, I'll be there soon."

After she hung up Catherine went out and looked in Grissom?s garage. His truck was gone. For a moment Catherine thought maybe, for once, he had left his phone, and then disregarded it. Going back, she sighed and tried to see the scene as a crime scene.

She slipped on gloves she always carried in her pocket and looked around. Nothing was in Grissom's jacket, no notes on the table. Picking up the phone, Catherine was about to replace it when she saw the LCD readout that normally held time and could display a greeting had changed.

Normally, the phone just showed the time. Grissom wasn't interested in a cute welcome screen. As Catherine looked, she noticed the screen was displaying a short message: MANHATTAN.

"Okay, now I *am* scared. Gris, where the hell are you?" she said out loud.

Grissom had managed to turn onto his back in the pit. When Emerson had left he'd turned out the light and darkness had fallen hard. With an effort, Gil had calmed himself and was taking stock of the situation. First, he was surprised to find he no longer was shackled.

Feeling around the pit led him to find two depressions in the side walls. Sandy dirt fell into his eyes as he scratched around and pulled out what felt like a tube. With a little work Grissom discovered it was a penlight. He smiled a little and shone it on the first depression, closest to his head.

In the niche was a long metal box. Grissom reached in awkwardly, turning a little on his side, and pulled the box out. He looked at it closely and then opened it. He gasped a little at what he saw.

The light picked up the pocket watch, the surgical steel gleam of the scalpel, and the thin glass of a small ampule. Grissom had seen enough military presentations and displays to know he was looking at a cyanide dose, older to be sure, but still...he had no doubt...lethal.

"Jesus," he said, mouth dry. He shut the box with a fast click and shoved it back, unwilling to think of reasons it would be there. He swallowed and looked a little farther down, shining the light in the
second depression. This one held a canteen. Grissom reached in and shook it a little. Liquid sloshed in it and Grissom sighed. "Great," he whispered. "Hate to die of thirst."

He flicked off the penlight and turned onto his back. He was cold, frightened, and confused?more than anything, though, Grissom was wondering if indeed his CSI team had any hope of finding him alive.

Nick, Warrick, Sara, and Catherine were trying desperately to figure out where their chief had gone, and how he had. Jim Brass had been there and allowed a crime scene to be declared, but confessed himself at a loss. The place was almost sterile except for the phone message.

Each CSI had taken a different room....Nick the bedroom, Sara the kitchen, Warrick the second bedroom, and Catherine remained in the living room area. The only thing any of them had found yet was dried sweat on his treadmill and couch, a wet towel on the bathroom rack, and Grissom's own hair on the couch.

Cursing, Catherine leaned against the wall and looked again at the cell phone message, now in an evidence bag but still showing MANHATTAN. She sighed and dropped her head. When she lifted it again, she noticed something the changing light had finally allowed her to see from her angle.

"Nick!" she called before moving. Nick Stokes came out of the bedroom.

"Yeah?"

"Look at this," Catherine said. She bent over near Grissom's treadmill at a patch of faint salt from sweat. From the angle and shape of the stain Catherine imagined Grissom had tossed a towel over
it without actually wiping it. There were very faint streaking near the back of it, but more of a pooling of sweat near the treadmill base. The sweat salt was barely visible, but what Catherine had noted from her angle at last was the flattening of the stain.

Nick knelt next to her. "Salt from sweat...actually, a lot of sweat. Well, it does look like he worked out tonight. What is it?"

Catherine pointed closely. "Yes, it's a sweat stain on the floor...thank god it's a hardwood floor. But look here...see this ridge, and this one?"

Nick leaned close, then laid out flat and eyeballed the shape. "Yeah...not a natural way for sweat to fall. Like someone...what, stepped in it?"

"Yeah...but there was something different about the shoe tread...see?"

"What's up?" Warrick asked as he came in, Sara close behind. "Find something besides that damn phone message?"

"Cath may have found a footprint."

"Nick, it's his home. His footprints are going to be everywhere," Sara said as they all congregated around the spot.

Nick, still looking closely, shook his head. "There's something wrong with the tread imprint...it's soft, or fuzzy. Liftable, but really hard."

Warrick knelt to look. "Whoa. Yeah. Okay, that's weird. Electrostatic coming up," he said. Nick nodded.

"Jesus. Maybe we do have us a crime scene," Sara said, shivering at the thought.

"In Gil's home. And with two clues. Oh, guys, this is not going to be simple," Catherine said, voicing what none of them wanted to hear.

Five hours later, Grissom was managing a fitful, cold sleep in his enclosure. He had yet to drink out of the canteen, worried about what it held and also worried he just might need the liquid later.

He struggled awake out of a nightmare and blinked his eyes hard. He gripped the penlight in his hand tightly and resisted turning it on...he was afraid the batteries would die. Though he felt himself lucky he wasn't claustrophobic, Gil wondered how long he would be able to keep his mind occupied before debilitating panic set it.

A short while later he saw the light come on and squinted at the sudden brightness, then heard steps coming close. He tried to make himself small, frustrated by the enclosure, and shrank back when the bars grated and the metal swung back.

"Doctor Grissom! Glad to see you're awake."

Emerson waited to see if Gil would reply, then nodded. "It's okay. Save your strength, right? I understand. Here, let me help then."

Gil let out a frightened cry as Emerson reached down and grabbed his hair. He managed not to cry out again as he was dragged halfway out of the pit by his hair, finally ending up with his back against the edge of the pit, lower half of his body still in it. His breaths came hard as he watched Emerson warily.

"Sorry. No shirt to grab. Very macho of you, doc. But...well, it doesn't matter."

"What...what do you want?" Gil asked, surprised at his voice's steadiness. He saw Emerson turn away, then spin and Grissom felt a boot slam into the side of his head. Blood flew from his lips and he felt a blinding pain explode in his head. When his head returned to center he opened his eyes and blinked them clear. Emerson was sitting in a chair next to him, calm. He opened his mouth to let blood flow and raised one hand to feel the injury.

"I don't really want anything from you, Doctor Grissom. Your life, maybe...but even then, I'm giving you a one in a million chance to get off. I suppose you might say that's about the odds my brother was gonna get off...your evidence was perfect."

"He did it," Grissom managed to say. His head ached badly and he felt his lower lip torn.

"I know. I know. John's not a good boy, and he's kind of dumb. It's just too bad I don't believe in the death penalty, Doctor."

Grissom stared in astonishment. "You...don't?"

"Nah. It's a crock. See, I know what Americans really want with it is revenge, retribution....they want to inflict pain. But we have laws against that. My brother's dying because we don't have the balls to just say 'you know, we want to lynch him, that's what will make us feel better.?"

"You? I don't?"

"I know. Why am I doing this if I know he deserves to die? Because I want revenge for it. He's a murderer, but he's my brother. I said I'd take care of him. And if I can't...well, I can take care of you, Doctor Grissom. A little retribution, a little pain...maybe I'll feel better," Emerson said, then knelt next to Grissom. He grabbed the graying hair again and pulled Gil's head close to his. "It'll hurt, but as the hours go, well...it'll hurt more than this," he said, then Grissom saw a black-gloved hand with a dully shining set of brass knuckles on it making its way toward his face. His head flew back as Emerson let go, and Gil knew before his body hit the edge of the pit again that his nose was broken. He tried to get his hands up to protect his face but Emerson pulled him close again and slammed the metal-clad fist into his face again and again. Frantic, Gil managed to deflect some of the blows with flailing arms, but he felt his nose explode in pain again, his lip split open more, and the last blow sent a shrieking pain from Gil's left temple up into his brain...it felt like his cheek bone or supra orbital ridge had cracked. He moaned in pain, trying vainly to lift his hands to his face. Emerson stepped back, winded, and watched.

The sight didn't please him. His own rage had pushed him a little farther with his fists than he planned on going, and he was upset he'd lost control. The man writhing in pain, bleeding profusely, did not make him happy. Emerson frowned.

Grissom had tensed for more blows, and when they didn't come he opened his one good eye and looked. He saw Emerson watching him and thought he saw something pass over his face, but the pain in his head was canceling out his reasoning skills. Gil let his hands fall to his side and simply waited...he could do nothing else.

Finally, Emerson cleared his throat and pocketed the brass knuckles. He sat back in the chair and sighed. "That wasn't exactly planned," he said at last. "Sorry."

Grissom watched through a fine film of blood, trying to blink it out of his eye. His whole body and head ached and all he wanted was to lay down and either die or go to sleep for days. He waited for either option to become available.

"Well, let's get on with this then...no, Doc. I'm not going to hurt you like that again. Promise." Emerson stood, and with infinite care settled Grissom back into the pit. Pain was spreading all through his body but Grissom realized Emerson was trying to be careful. *What the hell for?* he thought vaguely.

"There. Now, I need to move you onto your stomach...it's gonna hurt. I'll try to be careful," Emerson said, and rolled Grissom onto his stomach.

Tears flowed from Grissom's eyes as he tried to keep his face from touching the ground. His ribs ached as well from the kicks earlier, and overall Grissom couldn't think of anything but how much
he hurt.

Reaching into his back pocket, Emerson withdrew a rubber glove and a closed knife. He drew off his leather glove with his left hand carefully and slid on the rubber glove before picking the knife up and opening it. He knelt next to the pit and placed the tip of the knife at the top of Grissom's spine.

Grissom felt the prick of metal and his breathing halted. Part of him said, well, at least I won't be in any more pain, and another was yelling at him that death wasn't an option.

"I need you to push your shorts down, Doc. Come on, you can do it," Emerson said lightly, pressing hard enough to force a drop of blood from Gil's skin.

Shivering, Grissom managed to bring his left hand out from under him. He had no idea what was going to happen, but something about Emerson wanting him to do it reminded him of something. Before he moved the hand down his side he scrabbled at the sandy dirt on the side of the pit, trying to get it under his nails.

Slowly, he slid his hand along his side until he felt the elastic waistband, hesitated, and a pain behind his head moved his hand. He pushed the elastic down until he felt metal press against the skin he uncovered. He released his breath shakily and closed his eyes, digging his hand into the material and scraping his nails on the edge of the elastic, trying to deposit dirt there....maybe it'd make its way to his CSIs

Emerson released the trigger on the air syringe and Grissom felt a cold shock. He thought it was over and let his hand drop, when he felt the knife slide down his spine, cutting a shallow wound, then slice deeply across his lower back. Grissom hissed in pain, then cried out in fear when he felt the knife slide under the waistband of his boxers and rip the cloth open down the side of the leg. Quickly Emerson slit the other leg of the boxers and pulled the boxers off Grissom. He held the bunched cloth on the bleeding back wound until blood had fairly soaked it, then shook a plastic evidence bag open from his pocket and tossed them in. He sealed it and stood up, observing the shaking and moaning man below him with detachment.

"I imagine that hurt. Sorry. I don't think you'll bleed to death from it. I wouldn't let you, anyway. Besides...in about 14 hours it'll all be moot."

Grissom managed to turn his head so he could see Emerson. Pain blurred his view but he tried to pay attention.

"The injection I just gave you? It's an interesting little development in chemical warfare from friends overseas. How did I get it? Same way I manage to get into this place...I know the right
people." Emerson set the bag aside and knelt down.

"It's basically the same family as Ebola, with a modification. It's now a pneumonic form of bubonic plague-like thing. Massive internal bleeding after a 12-16 hour period of incubation. Fever, chills, sweating, dysentery...sorry about that. Vomiting...at a certain point you'll be vomiting blood as your lungs start to degrade. If you make it to 12 hours, you'll start bleeding from your pores,
probably...depends on the virulence of the strain I gave you, and your own tolerance, of course. At 14 hours most people will be dead. No one's alive after 16 hours.

"Why now? Well, I calculate that right about the time my brother's being killed, you'll decide to kill yourself with one of the handy tools I left you down there. I doubt you'll be able to take the pain.
In about sixteen hours he'll be dead, and so will you...by your own hand or mine." Emerson stood, picking up the bag, then snapped his fingers.

"Oh! I said I would give you a one in a million chance. I'm going to leave one more little clue for your team. These shorts will prove you are alive, or were, and maybe that you had some drug in your blood. Unfortunately, they'll have to have figured out the first clue to figure out where these are. I hope they're as good as you are," Emerson said. He set the evidence bag on the chair and replaced the grate. "Sleep tight, Doctor Grissom," he said before leaving and turning off the light.

In the darkness, Grisson wept bitterly.

At the lab, Catherine was frustrated by attempts to retrieve anything from the cell phone she?d found in Grissom?s home. Nick, Sara, and Warrick had retrieved anything it looked like Grissom had touched from his house, and Warrick was going over the living room again in one-foot sections.

Nick Stokes came into the lab, eyes bleary. "Hey, Cath."

"Nick," Catherine said, not looking up from the scope. "Anything?"

"No, goddammit. Not a damn thing. The print is smudgy...something between it and the sweat...I just can't *think* clearly right now!" he said, slamming his hand on the table. Catherine jumped. "Sorry."

"You know, I've been thinking about that. What if...Nick, what if someone broke into Grissom?s house, and kidnapped him?"

"Catherine, that's what we assumed happened!"

"Let me finish...what if they did it, and did it with knowledge of how to keep any evidence from being left behind? Almost like they knew Gil's job?"

Nick leaned against a table. "Okay, that's creepy. But...oh, man."

"Nick?"

"Catherine, what if the guy was wearing shoe covers? Like we would in a scene?"

Catherine let this sink in, not noting Sara had come in with her cell phone to her ear. "Oh, Nick?"

"Okay...yeah, okay, here Cath....it's Warrick," Sara said. She handed the phone to a surprised Catherine and stood next to Nick. "He found something," she whispered to Nick.

"Yeah? Really. Oh, Warrick...that's not good. I mean, at least we have something, but it's not a positive sign. Get it over here now. All right." Catherine shut the phone and handed it back to Sara. "Jesus, how much weirder can this get."

"What'd he find?" Nick asked.

"He found a little spot on the couch that had been scratched deeply...there was a little blood and a tiny skin fragment. He thinks it was deliberate from the angle and depth."

"Oh...oh, no. Okay, so let's assume Gil is in deep shit wherever he is," Nick said.

"Yeah. Nick, tell Sara what you think about the lack of evidence," Catherine sighed, dropping into a chair.

"Oh...well, I was telling Cath, what if the guy knows how not to leave evidence? I was thinking the tread print...what if he was wearing shoe covers? The only reason we'd get anything is because he stepped into a spot of sweat near Gil's treadmill and there was enough to soak the
fabric through...he must have been moving really slow. So the print is barely there. Bastard *knows* about CSI methods!"

Sara let that digest for a moment. "Then....then Nick, maybe we should be looking at Gil's case files. I mean...we all know it happens to cops, what if someone Gil put away got out and is looking for him?"

"Maybe....but I'm thinking, it's more likely someone connected to one of the perps. I mean, a lot of Gil's cases closed on life or the death penalty. Not many of them would ever get out. We can go through all of them if we divide up," Catherine said, standing with hands on hips.

"Cath, there are like hundreds. How are we going to narrow it down?" Nick asked, even as he found some hope in the idea.

"I don't know. We'll leave out anyone with no family, I guess. I don't know."

"We have to try. Let's search for Manhattan, too. Maybe born there, maybe a last name or address," Sara added. Nick nodded.

"Yeah. I'll commandeer a computer in Brass' office...Cath, can you access Gil's files on his computer?"

"Yeah. Sara...you get the computer in the other lab. Just start searching, fast, guys!"

Warrick Brown came frowning into Grissom?s office, looking at the report Greg had handed him. He tapped Catherine's shoulder and she looked up from the screen, eyes red. "Got the DNA report. It's Grissom's," he said shortly.

"Of course. Anything else?"

"No. Why would it be there? I don't get this whole thing."

"Neither do I, Warrick. Maybe Gil tried to leave something to tell us he wasn't going willingly. It'd be like him," Catherine said, sitting back in Gil's chair. Warrick sat on the edge of the desk.

"Man, I'm freaked by this, Cath. Without Gris around, I'm feeling jumpy....knowing I'm supposed to help find him. What if he's out there waiting for us?" Warrick shivered a little.

"Don't think that. You did a great job finding that. Now, we'll see if we can find anything in the files."

"Nothing yet?"

Catherine sighed. "Nothing obvious. That stupid phone message is driving me crazy too. No Manhattan addresses in Vegas, no last names, nothing."

Warrick hopped down and looked over her shoulder. "What about business names?"

"Nothing there yet."

Warrick sighed and stood. "All right, I'm gonna find a computer and try to Google me an answer. Maybe a paper in Manhattan covered a trial here, who knows. Maybe the guy has a thing about New York."

Grissom clicked the penlight off after looking at the pocket watch. He was cold, miserably cold, and he could feel a fever building. He still lay on his stomach, convinced he would be warmer. It meant his face was constantly hurting from being on the ground, but he really didn?t think he could be in much more pain than he was.

He was, however, finally giving in to his thirst. Reaching into the second depression, he awkwardly opened the canteen with one hand, brought it to his torn lips, and tipped it up.

Grissom took two swallows before he realized the water was salty. Pain lanced his lips as he sloshed water on them moving the canteen away. "Fuckin' bastard," he whispered harshly. Gil knew, if he thought he was thirsty now, he?d be much worse later on after drinking salt water. Still, he capped the canteen, put it back, and curled his hand back under him.

He wasn't sleepy, though he was physically exhausted from trembling constantly. He'd named all the bones in his body from his toes to his pelvis to occupy his mind, and now he started on his fingers. Grissom felt if he was still able to think, he would be okay, pain and all.

....Phalanges...metacarpus...scaphoid...os magnum?.

Warrick Brown leaned back in the desk chair, frustrated after his twentieth Google search combination yielded nothing. Lacing his fingers behind his head, he rocked back in the chair and allowed his mind to wander.

"Okay. It's not going to be obvious. It's going to be connected, but not obvious. So no city, no home or address....what's here that's Manhattan besides a goddamn drink? And I could use one too, nice big Manhattan and a blackjack table"

Warrick stopped. Head spinning, he leaned forward and quickly typed in *Las Vegas Phone Book* The search engine pulled up several sites, and Warrick clicked on one even as he grabbed the phone and called Grissom's office.

He waited for Catherine to pick up as he clicked several times, ending up with a listing of casinos in Las Vegas. His eyes lit up as he heard Catherine's voice.

"Willows."

"Cath, it's New York, New York," Warrick said excitedly as he clicked on the final link to bring up the casino's home page.

"Warrick? What?" Catherine sat up in her chair as well.

"There's a Manhattan suite there...the casino, Catherine!"

"Jesus! Go, go, I'll get Nick, go!"

In less than twenty minutes all four CSIs and Brass were at New York, New York, hustling into the casino through a mass of gamblers and tourists. Brass shouldered to the hotel check in and asked for the manager. Nick, Sara, Warrick, and Catherine let their eyes wander over the crowd, looking for anything.

Brass came back with a brown package with a white typed label on it. It bore the name of the person who was going to check into the Manhattan suite when he arrived from Belgium in two days. The hotel manager assured Brass no one had been in the suite and the gentleman from Belgium had yet to make it to the States. Sara and Catherine went up to the suite anyway, while Nick and Warrick took the package and went back to the lab.

Opening it very carefully after x-raying revealed nothing overtly sinister, Warrick and Nick pulled out an evidence bag, red printing indicating nothing except EVIDENCE. Nick took the envelope for analysis and Warrick the bag.

Warrick grimaced as he looked the bag over, then moaned softly. "Oh, Grissom," he breathed. He recognized the silly handcuff boxers they had given their chief as a joke last year...only now they were covered in what looked to be blood. "Please, please be okay," he whispered as he began the careful process of analyzing the bag and its contents.

 

Violent trembling shook Grissom?s clammy body, the sweat rolling off his body pooling on the plastic under him. He knew he was running a high fever, besides coughing, and his stomach was knotting in pain. He knew he?d been lucky to just have to urinate in the last hours, but even through his shivering he knew it wasn?t going to last.

He was trying to curl up to get warmer when the first wave of nausea hit. It was unexpected and Grissom?s well-developed gag reflex was overcome. He retched several times, painfully, and finally brought up darkish fluid and bile. It made his head pound uncontrollably and Grissom moaned and gritted his teeth. He managed to wipe the vomit away from his face, toward the wall, with one weak hand. The hand struck the metal box in the depression and Grissom pulled his hand
away quickly. He didn?t want to remember what was in the box. The watch he had set next to it so he wouldn?t have to see the scalpel and cyanide again.

Grissom had given up trying to occupy his mind with lists and wordplay?now he simply let his mind bounce from pain to excruciating pain. He found the worst pain was in his head, near his cracked brow ridge, the second his lip, and the third his bruised ribs. Of course, the general knowledge he had been given an injection of a disease that would make him bleed to death from the inside brought its own unique pain.

A few hours ago, when the shivering had begun and not stopped, Grissom had shone the flashlight on the contents of the metal box. He saw the scalpel was bright and new, the cyanide ampule shiny as well. He tried to figure out what kind of death both would be. Obviously, cyanide would be faster. It was the obvious choice.

Grissom had assumed the scalpel was for cutting his throat or wrists....a messy and not always successful way to die. He had been confused by that for a long time.

It was when he coughed up his first dark yellow phlegm with a racking wheeze, and noticed a few brown specks in it....blood...that he'd understood the presence of the scalpel. It horrified him and made him draw his body away from the metal box.

Grissom understood that Emerson was giving him two options...die quickly, and relatively painlessly, or slit wrists and bleed slowly to death. Gil realized that Emerson understood Gil's hope...he hoped his CSIs would somehow find him. If he wanted to give them maximum time
to find him but minimize his own pain, he would use the scalpel and cut his wrists. They might find him before he bled to death. But Grissom knew he would have to time it correctly...if he cut his wrists too soon he'd be dead, and if he cut too late he'd last and suffer a horribly painful death if his team didn't find him. The cyanide was there if Grissom managed to last fourteen hours and finally, when his hope of being found had died, decided to end the pain quickly.

The realization brought unexpected tears to his eyes....he had never known an understanding of sadism like Emerson's. He cried weakly as he remembered Emerson?s words?we want revenge, retribution. We want to hurt someone. In all his years in the field of death, nothing had felt so utterly painful and meaningless as the choice he was being given.

Catherine bumped into Greg coming out of the lab, looking harried. "Whoa, there."

"Oh, Catherine...I have the results of the tests on the shorts we....on the blood...I mean"

"Greg, it's okay. We're all stressed. Can I see them?"

"Yeah...it's, uh, it's Grissom's blood. His DNA. There's something weird in it, some synthetic tranquilizer."

"What's this soil analysis?" Catherine asked, interrupting.

"Oh, that's the weirder thing. The soil's a relatively common sandy composition, found all around the outer limits of the city, but it's got a....see here, it's got a much higher level of radiation than
anything normal. It's from a place the soil's saturated with radiation."

"Jesus...the testing grounds! Greg, I love you!" Catherine said.

Greg smiled weakly. He was very nervous about his results, knowing his boss? life depended on their abilities as a team. He hoped it was useful.

Catherine sped around the corner and smacked into Nick. She grabbed his arm and dragged him into the lab where Warrick was working. "Guys! We know he's somewhere with a really high level of radiation in the sand...one of the old testing grounds!"

Warrick and Nick both looked at the report. "Jesus," Nick said. "But Catherine, there are like hundreds of miles of old ground! And it's all military."

"Most of it," Warrick said. He'd gone back to the computer, pulling up Las Vegas correctional reports. "I was wondering if maybe someone was coming up for execution who Gil had nailed. Now, there are a couple but one guy is up later this morning...here. John Emerson."

"Does he have any family?" Catherine asked. She was dialing Brass on her cell phone as she asked.

"Yes....a brother. Let me see?" Warrick opened another window on screen and searched news archives in Vegas. He found several accounts of John Emerson's trial, and found one reference to his brother David, a former Air Force nuclear analyst. "Holy shit."

Nick looked. "His brother was a nuclear scientist... Oh my god."

"Okay, Brass needs to find him...find where he works, all that...Catherine!" Warrick pointed at the screen. Catherine nodded at him, speaking to Brass on the phone quickly.

Greg bolted through the door, Sara close behind him, waving another report. "Guys! I wanted to let you know I found out a little more on the radiation in that sample."

"Greg is a genius," Sara said.

Greg took a breath and began.

"I ran the sample?s level of radiation against a database of radiation degradation in that particular soil composition. It's definitely not from a newer testing ground. The radiation in the soil is degraded enough for me to give an approximate time the last exposure might have occurred." Greg stopped, gasping.

"And?" Sara prompted him.

"I asked a friend in the Department of Defense if he could run the sample's analysis against any database of radiation measurement he happened to have around. They test all grounds each year, you know, except some of the privately held ones sometimes fudge it and do it every 18 months. He narrowed it down to a testing ground in Nevada that's been defunct about 30 years....that gives us two places. One is privately held and I think that it's more likely it's that one. No
military to shoot at you if you're careful." He finished and leaned on the desk, breathless.

Warrick, Nick, and Catherine all stared at him, then spontaneously hugged him. "Damn, Greg, I'll never tease you about your hair again!" Warrick bellowed.

Greg shook himself free. "Guys, you gotta get going. This place is five hours away. Grissom could be hurt."

"Five hours nothing. Warrick, call Brass and tell him we need the police Lear. Greg, get me the precise location of this place. Nick, you, me, Sara, and Warrick have to be on the airstrip in fifteen
minute...grab your gear and guns. And Nick...grab the big med kit and find us a paramedic to go with."

The group spun into action, happy to have something to cling to and worried they'd have found it too late for their chief.

Emerson had come down the stairs and opened the grate. He saw the body move slightly?he had thought Grissom would still be alive. He noted with a clinical eye the sweat, the ugly gash on the back, the tremors running through the man's body. Emerson brought the chair closer and sat, elbows on knees.

Something about the condition Grissom?s body was in made him angry. He knew he wouldn't lose control again, and didn't consider himself at fault for the CSI's general shape now...but something bothered him. He reached down and lightly prodded Grissom?s shoulder, watching as the body jerked slightly. He heard the breathing quicken and saw the man try to draw away. His body barely had the strength to shift his weight away from Emerson.

Emerson leaned back. He thought that perhaps he was bothered because one, he was appalled at the degraded state Grissom had fallen into, and two, because he halfway expected Grissom to have taken the cyanide. Part of him knew that the CSI was a strong man, obviously capable, and probably possessed of a high tolerance for pain, but he had not thought Grissom capable of enduring what he knew to be terrible pain for so many hours. It made him angry, sad, and a little
resentful. He wasn?t getting the revenge he thought he wanted, and the pain he was inflicting was beginning to seem excessive even to him. *Well, there's nothing I can do now to stop it,* he thought. Taking a small box out of his pocket, he looked at it, sighed a little, and set it carefully down next to the edge. It bore a large block-lettered word on its plastic case: E-66 ANTIDOTE.

"Doctor Grissom. I didn't expect you to really be with us. Right now, I think they're probably asking my brother what he?d like to eat...final meal and all. I wish I had more options for you, but I'm afraid there are limited options." Emerson reached into his pocket and tossed a Payday candy bar into the pit. It hit Grissom's shoulder and he moaned in pain.

Grissom opened his one relatively unswollen eye and saw the candy wrapper. He tried to find the humor in it...the salt in the candy bar would only exacerbate his pain...and he failed. He had been unable to drink anything else after his first few swallows of water, and his throat was closing up with thirst, opened occasionally by violent retching. The only fluid he'd swallowed in hours had been blood from his torn lip and face. Blood, mucus, and grainy phlegm were sticky and drying under him, for he had been unable to keep up with the quantity...he had stopped trying to wipe it away from him.

As Emerson watched, a harsh cough racked Grissom's body and he grimaced at the sound and the groans of pain. He wondered at the man's ability to tolerate pain, and then wondered...what if he was too weak to move now?

Emerson knelt at the edge of the pit and touched Grissom?s shoulder. A sound escaped and he prodded harder. Gil managed to form a whispered "no."

"Okay. You are alive. I'm going to give you a hand," Emerson said, and reached into the depression near Gil's head, taking out the metal box. He opened it and set the cyanide pill in front of Gil's eyes, and the scalpel into his right hand, after pulling the hand from under Grissom's body. "There. I was worried maybe you weren't up to the task." When he stood he shut the grate, barred it, and clicked the padlock with a simple finality.

Grissom was too tired to cry. He weakly held the scalpel and drew his hand up slightly to show he was quite capable. He shut his eyes on the cyanide and tried to simply keep breathing.

"Okay, I pulled all kind of illegal strings to get us here, informed the military of where we're flying, and now we've got to figure out where in a hundred mile square Grissom could be," Brass said over the jet's whine. The CSIs and Brass were in the jet, along with the pilot and a slightly bewildered paramedic Warrick has shanghaied.

"Hey, we're over the area now," the pilot said from up front. At that, the team started looking out windows as the pilot dropped the plane.

"Are there any buildings left? Any structures at all?" Nick asked as Warrick flipped through a file on the old Nevada Stakes proving ground.

"Most are gone, just fallen over, but it seems the owners report a few old houses and sheds on the land. The houses were part of the testing...see how they'd take the blasts."

"Some are still around?" Sara asked.

Warrick nodded.

"Only those about a half-mile, mile away from ground zero. They're still pretty damn radioactive."

"And me without a Geiger counter," Catherine sighed. Her fear for Grissom was almost out of control. He'd been gone too long for anything good to happen.

Brass was looking out a side window when he thought he saw a blue metal flash in the distance. "Hey, Mike...do you see that flash up ahead? About northwest?" he asked the pilot. The CSIs crowded round him.

The pilot looked, then veered slightly northwest. "There's something. I'll drop down."

350am

Lacking the strength to talk to himself, Grissom had been signing lines from poems and songs he remembered, his hands moving feebly. He felt he had to do something to keep from deciding on a form of suicide. He kept his eyes tightly closed so he wouldn't see the cyanide ampule in front of him.

The coughing was almost constant now, and Grissom could feel his lungs filling with fluid...his breathing was labored and raspy. The last hour or so dysentery had finally struck and he felt dehydrated and totally void of energy. Between the vomiting, the shivering, and constant stomach and intestinal pain, he knew he wasn't far from a bad death.

He forced himself to think very clearly, deciding on a way to end the pain that could still save him?he had not given up hope in his CSI team. Grissom figured that if he was going to die there was no point in giving up until he was dead...the pain he'd tolerated so long could not really get any worse. Of course, as he thought this every nerve ending was screaming at him in shrieking, hysterical unison: PAIN.

Grissom didn't think he could use the cyanide. It was too final, too completely irretrievable. At the same time, he knew he couldn't take more pain. He had reached his limit of tolerance and only had enough mind left to decide his next move.

He struggled and managed to bring his right hand up, then pushed with his last muscular energy and was able to push his body up enough to get his left hand out from under his body. It left him almost on his side, and drained. It was several minutes before he could move again.

He moved his head so the cyanide was out of his direct line of sight and breathed deeply, exhaling in a cough a fine mist of blood. Grissom felt he should leave something, in case they didn't find him
in time, something....he wanted more than ever in his life to be able to tell people he cared about that he did care for them deeply.

Moving his hands together, Grissom signed a goodbye to his mother and his friends. He signed Catherine's name last, his mind trying to focus on her, to give him any kind of center. A rattling cough turned into a gagging as blood and bile warred to be vomited out, and the intense pain decided him. He drove the scalpel cleanly into his left wrist, pulling it down the vein, not across, then without acknowledging that tiny hurt in a myriad of greater ones, turned the knife and cut his other wrist open. Grissom dropped the knife, brought his hands up to his chest, and waited for whatever was going to happen to occur.

The pilot had brought the plane down less than thirty yards away from Grissom's truck. The CSIs piled out, guns drawn, as Brass ordered the paramedic to stay near the rear.

Nick and Warrick went to the truck and glanced in. Seeing nothing but the keys in the ignition, they backed up Brass, Sara, and Catherine as they approached the wooden old house nearby.

Brass was about to knock, Warrick going around the side and Nick the back, when the door opened. Brass jumped back and aimed, Sara and Catherine training their guns as well on the man in the doorway. "Who the hell are you?" Brass yelled over the whine of the jet engine.

"David Emerson. Please, don't shoot. Can I help you?"

Brass pushed the man aside, against the inside wall. "Damn well better be able to. Where's Gil Grissom?"

Emerson watched with detachment as Sara and Catherine burst in, going through the house. He stood mildly before Brass. "That's up to Doctor Grissom, isn't it?" Emerson answered. Nick and Warrick came into the house.

"Nothing out there. Grissom!" Nick yelled as he passed the two men in the doorway. Warrick glared at Emerson as he too passed.

"They're upset with me," Emerson pointed out. Brass shook him and tossed him into the living room area. Emerson sat on the only chair in the room and watched Brass watch him.

Catherine had found a door in the kitchen and swung it open, waiting for another person to appear. Warrick came behind her. She reached up for the light.

"Got your back, Cath," Warrick said. They both felt a nervous energy and a cold fear.

"Good." She went down the stairs carefully. Warrick followed, pulling out his flashlight and flicking it on to find the next light. He shone the light on the switch near the bottom and nudged Catherine. As they got near the bottom of the stairs a sour smell of sweat and blood filled the air. Warrick cringed inside.

Catherine flicked the switch, quickly checked the room for people, and saw the grate. She ran to it, holstering her gun, as Warrick yelled for the people upstairs.

Kneeling, Catherine saw what she thought was Grissom, but it was difficult to tell under the blood and dirt. She pulled up on the grate, saw the lock, and yelled for Warrick.

"Oh my god...Cath, is that?" Warrick started, then he saw the lock. "Okay, screw the key. Back off," he said, pointing his gun at the lock from the ground and firing.

The sound brought Gil around and he muttered a cry. He felt the presence of people and was afraid all over again.

Warrick wrenched the grate up, tossing the bars aside, and recoiled with a gasp. "Oh god, Catherine...Grissom. Jesus."

Catherine looked, paled, and turned to Nick who was coming down the stairs. "Get that medic down here now!" Nick bolted back up, passing Brass and Emerson and dragging the medic down the stairs.

Brass looked at Nick, and back at Emerson. "I hope he's alive, you son of a bitch. For your sake." He saw Emerson look at his watch and cross his arms.

"Four AM. Who knew he had it in him?" Emerson said. He smiled, uncrossed his arms, and Brass saw he had a gun in his right hand. Before Brass could bring up his own gun, Emerson had tucked the barrel under his chin and fired. The shot knocked him backward, sprawling him in a bloody mess against a wall. Brass looked once, holstered his gun, and went out to call LVPD from the plane.

404am

"Catherine, he's bled all over, I don't know if?" Sara said, near tears as she looked at her boss and friend in his own grave.

Catherine ignored her. She and Warrick were looking over the syringe in the box marked antidote. "Catherine, we could kill him," Warrick said nervously.

"He's dying anyway, Warrick! If this is really what he needs."

"Uh, he's not going to make it to a hospital, so anything you want to try, do it," the medic said. They had turned Grissom over so he could work. All the CSIs were appalled at the shape their chief was in, but tried their best to ignore the wasted body. Grissom's vital signs were almost gone and the medic was at a loss.

"Cath...do it. Anything, we have to do something!" Warrick hissed.

"Jesus...Gil, please, please, you gotta hang in there," she said as she took the filled syringe up. She tapped it, wiped the side of his neck, and injected it into his carotid artery. She held a gauze pad
over the site as the skin sealed itself. "Well, this way it moves pretty fast. My god. Can we at least get him out of there?" She asked the medic.

He shrugged. "He's so incredibly damaged. That he's not already dead....if his neck is fine, let me brace it and we'll pull him out."

The CSIs made space and the medic worked swiftly. They all noted with mixed hope and dread that Grissom was still breathing. "All right. Help me," he said, and they carefully lifted Grissom out and placed him on a cloth-covered body board.

Sara, unable to look any longer, stood up and walked up the stairs. "I'm going to call Greg and tell him it's okay," she said softly. Tears streaked her face as she walked.

"Is it okay?" Nick asked, staring at the still body of their boss.

The medic covered the body gently with a sterile sheet and continued to bind the wrist wounds up. He was very silent, trying to ignore both the anguished faces of the CSIs and the ravaged body he worked on.

Catherine was kneeling next to Grissom, Warrick next to her. She reached out and very gently touched Grissom?s matted hair. "It has to be okay," she said.

Nick felt someone behind him and found Brass standing there. "Jim....what was that sound? Where's that asshole who was here?"

Brass walked in and sat on the chair Emerson had occupied before him, looking intently at Grissom's body. "He shot himself. He said "Four AM. Who knew he had it in him?" and then blam. Grissom?"

Nick looked back at his boss. "There was a box marked antidote next to that...pit. Catherine gave it to him and our man's been working his ass off. We're waiting a little, I guess."

With a sigh, the medic, who had never announced his name as Bill, sat back from the body. "Okay. He's not bleeding overtly anywhere now, but his blood pressure is still so low...like he's bleeding inside. He's got a lot of superficial wounds, broken nose, maybe a broken cheek bone...and from the amount of vomitus in that hole, he's dehydrated and very, very sick from something that's making him cough up blood."

"Do you know anything about an...E-66 virus, or drug, or something?" Catherine asked. The medic shook his head.

"No...I mean, we all probably have to be quarantined in case of contagion, but if I had to guess, I'd guess someone's infected him with something incredibly fast acting and bronchial.... attacks the lungs. Some forms of Ebola, old bubonic plague?hell, I don?t know!"

"It's okay, man. You're doing a great job," Nick said, sliding down the wall to sit next to Bill.

"How long are we gonna wait?" Warrick asked. He was still holding onto the fact his boss was still breathing. He was afraid to look away in case Gil stopped.

Catherine sighed. "I don't know. If that stuff was what he needed, well, maybe we gave it to him in time. He's so...damn, Warrick, he looks like he's been thrown out a window!" Catherine cried. She leaned into Warrick and he put an arm around her tightly.

"I know. He'll be fine....I mean, he hung on for so long. He had to...he had to believe we were coming."

"You know...he may have. I found a glass capsule in his pit there...like an old cyanide pill. And a scalpel. It's like he could have chosen either one...cyanide would have been fast suicide. Instead, he...." Bill stopped. The horror of the situation finally hit him. "Jesus," he breathed.

Nick moved closer to Grissom. He reached out a hand and let it rest on Gil's leg lightly. The sheet was already staining with blood and fluids. "He was still hoping we'd come. Damn it. Buddy, we're here. Stay with us, okay?"

Grissom had felt his body move, and had decided it was simply shifting into shutting down, bit by bit. He could barely feel his legs. His face was numb, his hands freezing....*how did I manage to get on my back, then?* he wondered.

An uncomfortable pressure on his wrists brought him once again into the present...he had been almost enjoying the gradual descent of cold on his body. He tried to open his one good eye and couldn't...everything felt weighted down.

Then a shock of pain had stabbed across his neck, and his body had screamed in pain again. Grissom's nerves vibrated, sending tremors throughout his body. He tried to shift, tried to speak, tried anything?nothing seemed connected to his brain anymore.

A short time later, though measured in Grissom's space of anguish it seemed days, he felt blood running more strongly in his limbs. The overloaded, simple, survival part of his brain began to function with his more rational mind again. For the first time in hours Grissom was able to think critically. He didn?t like what he found.

A voice cut across his mind. He thought it sounded familiar, and was afraid it was the insane man who had caused all this. With a huge effort he struggled to open his eyes. The effort failed, and Grissom felt a burst of despair.

"There! Look, he tried to blink...Catherine, did you see it?" Warrick yelled, pointing. He felt a little like an idiot, but his joy at seeing some sign of life in his boss was overwhelming.

"I did...oh, Gil," Catherine said. She touched his dirty, matted hair again, trying to communicate through touch how much she wanted him to live. Nick patted Grissom's leg.

"I knew it. He's gonna make it."

"Well...I'll take his blood pressure again, and then let's get him the hell out of here. I don't know what else to do," Bill said.

Grissom felt the pressure on his arm and pain flared. A tear washed across his face and Bill noticed it. "I'm sorry," he apologized. He checked the dial and quickly released the pressure in the cuff.

"Okay, it's up. Let's move him, but be really damn careful. If it's something affecting his blood or lungs, I don't want him screaming or breathing fast. He has to be moved very, very carefully. We'll get him in the jet and I'll have the pilot call Vegas Medical. There's a guy on staff there who does toxicology and immunology and has seen some strange shit in Africa. I want him to see this."

"What do we do?" Catherine asked, trying to focus again.

"I'm going to strap him on this, then I need a hand getting him out of here. You...Nick? Can you help me? And someone should clear a spot in the jet for the board."

"I'll do it," Warrick said, jumping up and running up the stairs. Brass followed him, casting a look back at Grissom.

Catherine stood and moved to let Nick and Bill work. She grabbed the box and empty syringe, Bill's equipment bag, and moved up the stairs ahead of them. She couldn?t shake the smell from the room.

Nervous, Nick took his end of the body board and waited. Bill took the other end, holding it so he could walk up the stairs facing forward. They lifted slowly, conscious of Grissom's delicate state,
and started up the stairs.

Warrick was near the hatch of the jet, Catherine and Brass already inside. Sara was in her seat, buckled in, nervously jogging one leg up and down and watching. Nick and Bill exited the house and moved quickly to the jet. Warrick stepped down and let Nick and Bill enter. They carefully set the board down on the floor and Warrick came back in, shutting the hatch. "Ready!" he yelled to the pilot.

"I need to call Vegas Medical....we're gonna take him there. Can you land this anywhere near it?" Bill asked, going up to talk to the pilot as they took off.

"No, I can't. Closest I can get to any hospital is one of the military bases, and they're too far. But I can put it down on our strip and have a medevac fly him to Vegas Medical. Only lose five minutes or so in the transfer. All right?"

Bill frowned. "Okay. Please make great time!"

"Don't worry. I'll set it up, and then I'll tell Vegas Medical to expect a chopper soon. We?ll make it happen," the pilot said, and Bill went back to his patient.

John Emerson was put to death by lethal injection at 500am local time, his death witnessed by reporters, his aunt, and the father of the two people he?d killed. His last thoughts were about his brother, the only person he had been close to in his life, as he was strapped to the gurney.

Nick Stokes was taking the 4-6 shift at the hospital, sitting in a chair outside Grissom's room. Catherine was sitting against the wall across from him. Nick smiled.

"Weren't you here from 2-4 too?" he asked. Catherine nodded.

"Yeah, yeah. I thought I'd just hang out until shift begins."

"Catherine, that's hours away. Go sleep somewhere. You know you're the first person I'd call if anything happened."

Catherine rubbed her neck. "I know. I'm just...Nick, I have to keep nearby, that's all. I'm feeling over protective. I can't help it."

Nick moved over and sat next to her. "I know. I know. I just...when I saw him, Cath? I got so angry. No one should ever have to feel what he must have. I wanted to beat the shit out of someone when I saw it. Then Brass comes down...and the guy's gone. Just gone. No one to hurt
for this. I wanted....Christ, I wanted to beat someone to death!" Nick said. He hadn't let himself feel the fear and anger he'd felt when they found Grissom, and he fought to keep it from returning completely.

Catherine looked at the younger CSI, then put her arm around him and her head on his shoulder. "You'd have to get in line behind me, Nicky."

They were still on the floor when Warrick walked up. "You two okay?" he asked.

Nick and Catherine looked up. "Hey," Nick said. "You too?"

Warrick sat in the chair. "Uh-huh. Hey, I talked to our medic....name's Bill. He's a good guy. I told him we owe him. He said he'd be happy if we didn't call him again for anything like that."

"No kidding," Nick said.

Catherine was about to ask Warrick about Sara when a doctor rushed past them and into Grissom's room. Warrick stood and looked through the door window. He saw the doctor looking at the myriad of machines helping Grissom breathe and monitoring his vital signs. Catherine and
Nick crowded behind, and all three were shoved out of the way by another doctor. They congregated again and waited.

In the room, the doctors were looking at Grissom's blood pressure readout and his oxygen intake. The sensors had set off an alarm in the monitoring area, indicating Grissom was struggling to breathe. What it meant at times was that a patient was trying to breathe on his own.

The doctors were hesitant because of the unknown nature of the disease that Grissom had. Dr. Harry MacDowell, the toxicology specialist, was most intrigued by the fact that whatever had been injected into the man after the first injection actually seemed to be preventing the disease from wreaking any more havoc. The disease didn't seem to be contagious now, and if it had been before, Dr. MacDowell imagined it would have killed whoever had it by now.

"You know, if he's trying to breathe on his own, it means whatever was basically liquefying his lungs has stopped. After we suctioned the damaged tissue, it doesn't seem he's had any more damage. I don't know how, but there it is," he said. He looked over at Martin King, chief of thoracic surgery.

"Well hell. He's obviously a stubborn man. And, it seems he's going to make it. I'm happy to let him try breathing on his own."

To the CSIs chagrin, they were elbowed once more by a nurse who went into Grissom's room. They looked through the window and watched as Dr. King and the nurse removed Grissom's breathing hose and switched off the pump. Nick could feel Catherine's nails digging into his
shoulder and winced.

Struggling in what seemed to be an airless room, Grissom's mouth worked and his body tried to remember how to breathe. He could feel the air trying to pass his sore lips, and tried to suck in a breath. A few failures, a moment of panic, and he inhaled on his own, a deep breath followed by a shaky exhale. It happened again, and then again.

In his mind, Grissom felt an infusion of energy, something clearing and fresh. He thought the air sweet and cool, and even though it hurt a little to breathe, he committed himself to it and reveled in the sensation.

The doctors were surprised to have to push the door open past three CSIs. They looked over the tired investigators and Dr. King smiled.

"You all need sleep. He's breathing on his own. That's really a great sign," he said. Nick, Warrick, and Catherine let out their collective breaths.

"Jesus....thanks. Thank you," Catherine said.

"Any idea when he might come around?" Nick asked, arm around Catherine.

"Not really. We don't know enough yet about whatever he was given. But whatever it was it seemed that antidote, or vaccine, worked. I think he'll be fine."

"Yes, god," Warrick whispered. "Thank you."

The doctors smiled at the CSIs and left. Catherine, remembering, ran after them. "Doc!"

Both turned. "Yes?" Dr. MacDowell asked.

"Can...can we sit in his room now, do you think?" she asked quickly. She saw them look at each other.

"Oh...okay. Only one of you, and really I'd prefer it if for the next day you wore a gown and mask. Just in case," Dr. King said. He smiled at her. "I think he'd like it if he woke up and you were there."

"Thank you...thanks!" she said, and trotted back to the guys.

"So?" Nick asked.

"I'm going in. Gotta wear a mask, and gown, for now. I'm staying until shift begins," Catherine said, taking a surgical gown and mask from a nearby cart. "No noise. You two can sit out here if you want, but I suggest you get some sleep. Don't make me pull rank."

Warrick laughed. "All right, girl. I'm going to go to the lab and crash on the lounge couch. Nick, wake me when shift starts?"

Nick nodded. "Yeah. I'm gonna stay here a little longer, then I'll be down."

Warrick nodded, kissed Catherine on the cheek, and walked off. Catherine, tying her mask on, tapped Nick's shoulder. "Yeah?"

"Thanks for letting me go in first."

Nick smiled. "Happy to. If he comes to you tell him I said hi, okay?"

Catherine smiled and pulled up her mask, then went in. Nick looked through the window once, then settled down into the chair, closing his eyes.

Catherine sat in a chair pulled up to the bed, watching Grissom breathe. She had seen his right eye flutter, as if it would open, several times, but nothing more.

"Gil open your eyes, come on. Let me know you're here," Catherine said under her breath. She reached out a hand and let it rest on his forearm, on the wrist bandage. Before she closed her eyes, she took in the stitched lip, the stitches and butterfly bandages obliterating Grissom's left eyebrow, the plastic mask carefully strapped to Grissom's face to protect the fine surgical work of setting the supra orbital bone and to provide tension to keep the fracture together as well. She felt again the anger and despair, and tried to think about Grissom as he usually was.

Grissom was becoming more aware of his surroundings, even though his body was on a fairly large dosing of painkillers delivered intravenously. The doctors had wanted to keep his body generally sedated to discourage any movement that might irritate the ravaged lungs, stomach, and heart.

Through the haze, he felt his body?s weight on the bed, and the severe pain in his head. He felt as if he should be able to raise his hands, but any attempt left him confused as to where his hands actually were.

He engaged his mind as fully as he could, trying to concentrate his energy on opening his right eye, the only part of his face that didn't seem tacked down.

Catherine opened her eyes with a start. She wasn't sure if she'd dropped off, and sat up quickly. "Gil?"

Grissom flicked his eye over at the sound vibration he perceived. He didn't think he had lost his hearing again, but he felt his mind wasn't picking up on things with its normal acuity. The focus was slow, but when his vision cleared he saw Catherine looking intently at him. For the first time in a few days, Gil felt he actually was alive.

"Gris? Oh, Gil....thank god. Gil, I'm so....it's good to see you back," Catherine said. She stood, bending over him so he wouldn't have to turn his head. She felt tears forming in her eyes and tried to blink them back.

Grissom felt Catherine holding his left hand loosely. He couldn't speak quite yet, and swallowed painfully. With effort, he moved his fingers in her hand.

Catherine looked at the moving fingers, then back at Grissom. She saw the effort it was taking him to move them on his face. "Gil, don't. Just rest," she said, very gently stroking his hair.

Frustrated, Grissom moved his fingers again, forcing his hand to work. He began to shape meaning with his fingers. And as he looked up at Catherine, he saw her begin to understand.

Catherine looked again at Gil's hand, trying so hard to move. She took her hand away and watched. To her amazement, he was spelling out HELLO in sign language.

When he finished, his hand was weak but he grasped Catherine's fingers. He tried to say hello, say her name, say anything through his open eye. What he had back of himself he tried to communicate to her.

Catherine looked back at Gil's face, tears on her cheeks. His heart jumped a little at the sight.

"Hi to you too. Welcome back."

The next morning

Grissom was fully awake now, if not fully conscious of his body's many injuries. He was lying in the bed slightly elevated, his right eye roving as far as it could. He seemed to be desperate for sensory input.

Doctors had come and gone, impressed at his recovery but not understanding his frustration. He couldn?t make much sound yet, and they hadn't noticed his frantic one-handed signing for what it was.

He was working his mouth, prepping for the pain he'd feel when he finally spoke, when Nick and Warrick walked in. Grissom tried to smile and winced a little.

"Hey chief! Looking good!" Nick said as they strolled up. Neither wore protective gear, both doctors deciding Grissom's recovery was assured.

"Yeah, buddy. And....Nick, he looks a little pissed!" Warrick noted. Something about the way their boss looked at them with his one clear eye seemed angry to Warrick.

"Maybe. Hey Gris, you feeling okay?" Nick asked. He wasn't sure if Gil could talk, but he was trying to keep it light.

Gil flashed his eye over at Nick, then Warrick. He dragged his right hand up onto his chest, surprising both CSIs, and began signing.

Nick's brows raised. "Gris...uh, I don't know ASL, man. Warrick?"

"I know the alphabet, but.....uh, I don't know," Warrick said. He leaned a little closer and tried to make out the letters. "Um, let's see....R, and E, A...yeah, A. D? d? READ? Oh! Read!" Warrick cried triumphantly.

Grissom let out a small sigh of relief. He'd managed to communicate something.

"You mean, you want to read? Or something to read? Or us to read to you?" Nick asked. Grissom rolled his one eye. With a painful gulp, he opened his mouth.

"S....second," he rasped out. The sound of his voice was both welcome and unfamiliar to the CSIs. It sounded dull, harsh, and grating.

"Jesus, Gris! You spoke," Nick said happily. "Damn. I better call Catherine," he said, walking out to use his cell phone. Warrick moved closer.

The sight of his chief and friend's battered frame, the obscene plastic mask seeming like both a joke and a terrifying reminder of what Gil had gone through, was still shocking to Warrick. Even with his extensive experience of death and the obscenities humans could commit, Warrick had a difficult time seeing the damaged Grissom. Before Warrick would let Grissom know how scared he'd been for his boss, though, he'd pretend he was okay with it all.

"Hey boss. You had us a little nervous for a while there. Kind of stretched our skills on this," he said quietly. He reached out and patted Gil's right hand. "Don't do that again, okay?"

Grissom saw the emotion his CSI was hiding badly. It touched him that Warrick was concerned and afraid for him. He would never admit he liked Warrick's work and personality better than any of his team besides Catherine, but the two men worked together with a facility and communication that Grissom knew arose out of mutual respect and talent. Gil knew Warrick was the one who would have his job one day. *Could've been soon*, he thought wryly.

Grissom held Warrick's fingers to get his attention, and started to fingerspell slowly again. Warrick concentrated on the fingers.

"W....WO, um, M? No, N. T. WONT? Oh...okay, you won't do that again. I get it. Good." Warrick smiled, then was shocked to feel wetness on his face. He removed his hand from Grissom's and quickly wiped the tears away. "I'm sorry."

Gil slowly moved his head side to side and fingerspelled NO. As Warrick watched, Grissom spelled out what he'd been trying to say for hours now.

//Thank you.//


END

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