Ahh I'm so horrible for not updating, please forgive me everyone!! :lol:
She was laying there alone, alone in a pool of her own blood that glistened in the moonlight. She was shaking, fighting the effects of her body trying to go into shock. The blood was flowing heavily and freely from the gaping wound in her neck and she gasped as she tried to slow it with applied pressure with her right hand. But she was losing strength much too quickly and her hand grew limp at her side.
Then, she stopped breathing.
It had been his nightmare that had woke him up. He had woken up and expected to see Sara lying next to him in bed but she was not there. She said she was going to be there after she took a shower and got some more clothes. Had something happened? He knew he was probably being paranoid but he could not stand the thought any longer. If something had happened to her he would never forgive himself.
He sprinted out to his Denali in the clothes he had worn to sleep, forgetting to lock the door and slipping on a pair of brown loafers along the way. His heart was racing and he could feel sweat forming on his forehead and the upper part of his lip. He had never felt like this before, and he wasn’t one to trust his gut instinct, Gil Grissom relied on evidence. But right now, something- somewhere, perhaps in the back of his mind- was screaming at him to go see Sara and make sure she was alright. Something was telling him that she wasn’t.
Oh god Gil why did you leave her alone why did you let her go why didn’t you go with her—
He couldn’t stop the rapid train of horrible what-ifs in his mind so he pressed on the gas pedal in feign hopes he would arrive at his destination quicker. He could already see it in his head- she was probably curled up on the sofa in her pajamas wrapped in a blanket, reading a cozy novel or forensics journal with a mug of herbal tea on the table next to her. She would get the door and shoot him an annoyed look, telling him that he was far too paranoid and protective and that she could take care of herself.
He just hoped that was the reality of the situation.
After waiting at a red light that lasted far too long he sped off, his tires screeching against the rough pavement as he saw her apartment complex in the distance. Someone honked at him as he cut into another lane but he did not hear them over his own thoughts and the sound of his heart pounding. He parked right in the middle of the parking lot, throwing his door open and leaving the Denali running as he dashed across the lot to Sara’s apartment. He felt his blood run cold as he saw there were no lights on outside. Sara always kept lights on outside if she was there. Her Denali was parked right next to the door. She wasn’t on her way to his apartment, she must still be here.
He ran to the door and knocked rather loudly, trying to turn the knob and frowning when it wouldn’t budge. “Sara!” he shouted her name, pleading that she would hear him, that she would just open the door. When he didn’t hear any movement inside, he pounded again. “SARA!” he shouted. He listened closely against the oak door—he heard two voices. One of them was Sara, and the other was most certainly not the Discovery Channel narrator.
Scrambling to his knees Grissom reached under the faded and worn ‘Welcome’ mat in front of the door and found the spare key. Just then he heard her scream.
“GRISSOM!”
“SARA?” he shouted back, finally getting the damned key in the door. “SARA? HANG ON!” When the door finally budged he practically fell inside as he used all his weight to open it, leaving the key in the door as he sprinted to the room her voice was coming from. The bedroom, he deducted. “SARA, ANSWER ME!” he shouted. He couldn’t hear her voice anymore, and it was scaring him more than it was before.
He stopped when he reached her bedroom. The door was cracked.
“Gr… Gris…” she coughed and gasped for breath.
“Oh my god, Sara,” he whispered, racing into the room and rushing to her bedside. He grabbed her hand and squeezed it tightly before he noticed for the first time that her body was caked in blood that was steadily soaking into the mattress. He looked up and gasped at the large cut across her neck. “Oh my god, Sara,” he repeated, moving her hand away that was applying pressure so he could see it himself. There was too much blood for him to get a good look at it.
“Gri…” she tried to speak again and it broke his heart.
“Don’t try and talk honey, okay?” Grissom whispered, moving his hand to press against the wound in place of her own as he reached into his pocket for his cell phone. “I’m going to call an ambulance, just hang on,” he told her, punching in the numbers as he looked down at her with wide fear-filled eyes.
“9-1-1, please state your emergency.”
“This is Gil Grissom, I’m with the Vegas crime lab,” Grissom immediately said into the phone, “I’m at the apartment complex of Sara Sidle, I need immediate back-up and paramedics, we have an officer down!”
“Roger that, back-up is being sent.”
“Please…” Grissom whispered, more to himself than anyone as he watched Sara struggle to breathe as she choked on her own blood. “Hurry…”
Sara tried desperately to force herself to speak but the pain was too much and there was too much blood in the way for her to get any sentences out. She couldn’t even say Grissom’s name. She had to tell him what happened, it was Monica, she was distraught, she jumped out the fire escape when she heard Grissom outside, she was related to the case she had worked all those years ago in San Francisco, she…
Grissom’s eyes widened as he felt Sara slipping away. “No, no, Sara you have to stay with me right now, okay?” he asked her, gently tapping her cheek with his palm to wake her up. Her eyes were slowly opening and then slipping closed every second. “Honey I know you’re tired but you can’t go just yet, I need you to stay with me until Jim comes!”
She forced herself to stay conscious for him, though she was having the hardest time trying to fight the darkness and sleepiness that was threatening to overtake her with each passing second. The pain from her neck had become numb—it felt more like someone was pouring water all over the wound and wouldn’t stop then that she was bleeding. She opened her mouth to try and speak again, “Gris… som…”
”Sara,
please don’t try and talk,” Grissom repeated, brushing a hand against her cheek that was slowly losing its color and turning deathly pale. “You can tell me all about it later, but right now we have to make sure you’re okay,” he added, looking up as he heard sirens in the distance.
“I…” she gasped as dots began to dance in front of her eyes and she tried to shake them away. They couldn’t take her yet. She wasn’t ready. “I… lo…”
“I love you too, Sara,” he whispered, keeping the pressure on her neck as the back up finally arrived. “But stop talking, okay? God, Sara… I just…”
“Gil? Sara?” Jim Brass’ voice immediately interrupted them as he ran inside the apartment, gun drawn in front of him. He holstered it the second he saw Sara and Grissom on the bed. “We need medics, NOW!” he shouted. Two paramedics rushed into the bedroom after him with a stretcher.
“You’re going to be okay Sara, I promise,” Grissom whispered, reluctantly letting go of her hand as the paramedics lifted her onto the stretcher.
“Gil, go with her, I’m going to secure the scene,” Jim told him, “Keep us posted; I’ll call Catherine and the team over.”
Grissom numbly nodded at Brass as he followed alongside the stretcher holding the woman he loved. The paramedics were murmuring nonsense to one another but he couldn’t hear it as he kept his eyes glued to her face. Her eyes were looking around wildly, full of fear and panic and pain. “I’m right here, honey,” he assured her as they made it to the ambulance. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Alright, lift her on three,” one of the paramedics said, “One, two, three,” they all said in unison as they lifted Sara into the ambulance and jumped in after her, Grissom included.
The ride to the hospital was complete chaos. Sara had an oxygen mask placed over face, smudges and smears from her own blood covering it and she was out from the force of the anesthetic and sedative they had given her. There was an IV being hooked into her arm and the EMTs were talking each other about her vitals on the screen in front of them. Grissom couldn’t find his voice and he simply looked down at her prone form sadly, helplessly.
When they arrived at the hospital Grissom was forced into the waiting room which he protested to but was not in much of a state to argue about. He sat in one of the cold plastic chairs with his head in his hands after he saw doctors and paramedics disappear behind the double doors to the emergency room.
What was wrong with people? Why did they do these things? Grissom had never known the answer to these questions but now he wondered more than ever about the answer. Sara had never done anything to hurt anyone in her entire life. She was pure and innocent and was just someone who deserved to be happy. After she had confided in him about her past, about her parents, about the abuse and alcohol, about her horrendous experiences in foster care, he had sworn he would protect her no matter what.
Maybe in a perfect world he would’ve been able to.
He started to sob for his stupidity, sob for her, sob for how angry he was with himself. How foolish he had been- why did he not insist on staying with her? His shift could’ve waited. He had never been too keen on letting her stay at her apartment by herself anyways, not after there had been a murder just a few blocks away from her apartment complex. She had insisted it was fine and that she had her gun and Brass on speed-dial. Why had he let her go?
After hours of berating himself he jumped when he heard the doctor calling his name. He immediately got to his feet and ran a shaky hand through his hair. “Is she alright?” he anxiously asked him.
“Come with me, Sir,” the doctor advised him, waving him over with his clipboard. When Grissom followed, he let out a sigh as he led him down the hallway. “She is stable,” he announced. Grissom let out a heavy sigh of relief. “She sustained a significant amount of blood loss however I do not feel that a transfusion will be necessary. The wound on her neck was deep but did not nick any arteries. It could’ve been a lot worse.”
Grissom felt a huge weight lifted off his shoulders. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Can I see her now?”
The doctor nodded. “But for only a little while, as she will need her rest. She’s still out from the painkillers and sleeping medication and probably will be until tomorrow morning.” Grissom nodded as the doctor went through some papers on his clipboard. “We found these, you said you were with the crime lab?” he asked him. Grissom nodded, raising an eyebrow as he looked at the papers.
They were photographs of the wound and they made him want to vomit, however he managed to keep his professional persona in front of the doctor. He saw what it was he was trying to show him. “Hesitation marks?” he whispered. There were about four or five of them, small but still there around where the knife had been resting before the perpetrator made their move, probably with shaky hands.
“That’s what it appears to be,” the doctor nodded. There was a silence before he motioned to a room behind him. “You may see her now.”
Grissom nodded, already walking toward her room. “Thank you.”
The doctor nodded, heading off before he turned back around. “Oh, and Mr. Grissom?”
Grissom immediately turned around.
“She woke up at one point and tried to say something,” the doctor remembered, rubbing his chin in thought. “We put her back out right away, but I believe it was a name.”
Grissom’s eyes narrowed. “What name was it?”
“Monica, I believe the name was.”