Title:               Nosferatu Redux

Author:           Burked

Disclaimer:     CSI is the copyright of CBS, Inc.  No infringement is intended.

Spoilers:         Little references here and there.

Rating:            R, just to be safe

Summary:       A decidedly different kind of killer is stalking the streets of Las Vegas, and he has his eye on Sara

A/N:                Many thanks to Mossley. 

"Nos-fe-ra-tu?" Catherine sounded out.  "What language is that?" she mused, examining the words writ large on the brick building that the body was propped against.

"It's Slavic, derived from the Greek word nosophoros, which means 'plague carrier'."  Sara answered.  "But it is used to refer to 'the Undead', or vampires," she elaborated.

"Scared of you!" Catherine said. 

"I like horror movies," Sara explained, with a shrug.

"Well, we've got our own little horror movie in the making," Catherine said, bending down to peer into the sallow face of a girl who appeared to be in her late teens or early twenties.

A gaping tear curved about three inches, marring her throat.  They couldn't touch her yet, since no one had arrived from the coroner's office, though they had been repeatedly assured that someone would be there shortly.

The alley was dank and smelled of week-old trash in dumpster bins and blood.  This was fresh blood, giving off a metallic scent that was much less unpleasant than the rotten-meat smell of old blood.  Sara knew several CSIs who claimed they like the smell of fresh blood, though she thought it was a psychological reaction to make the blood's presence less disturbing.

The area around the body looked as if it had been cleaned somewhat.  Sara wondered whether the killer chose the cleaner spot to dump her or if he cleaned it himself.  There had to be some significance to the placement of the body, considering the surroundings.

"Do not even tell me that's written in blood," Sara said, taking out a swab to test her theory.  A drop of phenolphthalein, a drop of hydrogen peroxide, then the swab tip turned bright red, confirming the presence of blood.  It could be any type of blood, though.  She touched another sample to the precipitin test strip.  "Catherine, it's human," Sara confirmed.

"Probably the vic's," Catherine noted, as Sara pulled the 35mm camera out of the bag and began shooting the scene from around the 180 degrees she had to work with. 

"You know, we should call Grissom," Sara warned.  "This case has 'signature killer' written all over it."

"One case hardly qualifies as a serial, but you're probably right.  Better safe than sorry," Catherine conceded, pulling out her cell phone.

"Grissom?  Catherine.  Listen, I think you should come down here.  Sara thinks it might be the work of a signature killer, so she wants you to take a look.  Later," she said, flipping the phone closed.

"He's on his way."

* * * * *

An unmarked police car carrying Detective Captain Jim Brass and a Tahoe carrying Gil Grissom arrived almost simultaneously, effectively blocking the alleyway from either direction.

"Ah, geez," Brass moaned, walking up to the body.  "She's just a kid!"

"Nosferatu ... the Undead," Grissom defined for Brass as the two men stopped to stare at the printing on the wall.

"Well, considering that she's very dead, I assume that refers to the killer," Brass stated.

"Probably a safe assumption," Grissom agreed.  "Has the coroner pronounced?" he asked over his shoulder towards the two women.

"Nope," Catherine huffed in frustration.  "No one's gotten here yet."

Brass took the cue and called the coroner's office to find out what the hold up was.  He was told that David was tied up at another scene.  Brass explained as calmly as he could that he wanted someone at their location in fifteen minutes or less.  He didn't need to add the "or else."  His tense, overly polite tone let the party on the other end of the conversation know that he was holding back hell and it wouldn't last long.

Grissom stood over the body, brows furrowed in thought.  "You know, this treatment of the body isn't typical for a serial killer," he said to no one in particular.

"What do you mean?" Catherine asked.

"Look how he's laid her out straight, placing her hands on her chest and closing her eyes, as if for a funeral."

"And did you notice that the dump site is cleaner than the rest of the alley?" Sara asked Grissom.

"What's significant about all of that?" Catherine followed up.

Sara jumped in, hijacking his thoughts.  "Most serial killers are primarily motivated by anger, so they degrade or defile the body in some way.  They don't show this much ... respect," Sara searched for the word.

"Exactly," Grissom nodded.

"Maybe he was remorseful," Brass offered.  "Some of them are."

"Normally, the serial killer who feels guilt after the crime turns the body away from himself, or covers it, to keep the victim's eyes from 'accusing' him.  Instead, this killer took some time to arrange the body in the most dignified pose possible, under the circumstances," Grissom explained.

Thirteen minutes later Dr. Albert Robbins arrived.  It took him another minute to disentangle himself from his vehicle, gather his cane and his field kit and make his way to the body.  "You know, I don't usually make house calls," he said, approaching the small group gathered around the girl.

"I can't easily get down to her level, and I would have a hell of a time getting back up, but I think it's safe to say from here that she's dead," Robbins exhaled.  "Bled out from the carotid artery, from the looks of it.  Sara, you're the closest person with gloves on.  Just for the record, would you feel for a pulse, please?"

Sara bent down and put her fingers on the victim's throat, opposite from the gash.  "No pulse," she said.

"No shit," Catherine mumbled.

"Doc, wouldn't you expect arterial spray with that kind of injury?  All I see is relatively little pooling," Grissom noted.

"Yes, I would expect spray for several feet around the body," he concurred.

"Maybe she was killed somewhere else and dumped here," Catherine suggested.

"Maybe," Doc Robbins agreed tentatively.  "Roll her over and let's have a look at the lividity pattern on her."

Sara pulled the girl's body gently over on its side and eased up her shirt to reveal the bruise-like patterns where her blood sought to satisfy gravity.  There was a purplish-red stain appearing on her back, punctuated by white spaces where her body weight pressed directly against the pavement, preventing the blood from pooling between the hard bone surface and the skin.

"Doesn't look like she was moved," Robbins said, looking up apologetically at Catherine.

Taking the digital thermometer from his bag, he instructed Sara to push it a few inches into her abdomen, just below the ribs on her left side.  Sara involuntarily winced as she inserted it, then read the temperature aloud, "94.8 degrees."

"She's been dead around three hours," Robbins noted.  "David will come with the van when he's free.  I'll tell you more when I get her on the table," he said, turning to walk away.  He sat in his car and filled out the preliminary report before leaving, noting the pronounced time of death for the latest Jane Doe.

* * * * *

The girl's fingerprints yielded no match, which was not surprising at her age, but within a few hours a frantic phone call to the police department told them the probable identity of the victim, eighteen-year-old Amy Grove.  At the coroner's office, her mother later verified that the image on the monitor, sheet pulled well up to her chin, was indeed her daughter. 

Grissom and Sara bracketed the woman in the viewing room, silently averting their gazes as Amy's mother bit down on her fist, trying to choke back the tears.  She didn't want to break down there, in front of strangers.

"She left home at 5:30 to go to her fast-food job," the mother mumbled, drawing Sara's and Gil's attention.  "At seven o'clock, one hour after she was due to start her shift, her manager called to see why she wasn't there yet.  I spent hours calling everyone she knew and looking for her at her friends' houses and all her favorite hang-outs."

The woman stopped and took a deep breath, unable to tear her eyes away from the image.  While she knew it was Amy, the bluish skin made some part of her mind deny it.  "By midnight, I knew something was wrong.  She's never been irresponsible.  She's never been in trouble at school or with the law.  I tried to find her.  I really did," Ms. Grove sputtered, dropping her chin to her chest.

"I'm sure you did everything you could," Sara said softly, reaching out to tentatively touch Ms. Grove's arm, not sure whether the woman wanted the contact.

"Looks like my best wasn't good enough," she said, bitterly angry with herself.

"Ms. Grove, you can't monitor an eighteen-year-old twenty-four hours a day.  You did everything you could do, and from what it sounds like, you raised a fine daughter.  I'm very sorry for your loss," Grissom said, pleasantly surprising Sara with a gentle empathy she hadn't known he possessed.

"Thank you, Dr. Grissom," the woman murmured, finally turning from the screen.  "She was a good girl.  A very good girl."

"I'm sure she was," Sara agreed, running her hand soothingly up and down the woman's arm.  "She didn't live long, but she lived well.  You did a good job."

The woman looked at Sara with bloodshot, tear-stained eyes, the drops finally beginning to cascade down her cheeks.

"How did my baby die?  What happened to her?" she demanded, looking between Gil and Sara, waiting impatiently for some answers.

"Ms. Grove, I'm sorry, but it appears that your daughter is a victim of a homicide," Grissom said as gently as he could, considering what he was telling her.

Ms. Grove gasped, throwing a palm across her mouth, turning to look beseechingly at Sara, hoping she would somehow make it not true.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Grove," Sara said, shaking her head from side to side, unable to take away the truth.

"How?  Why?   Who did this to her?"

"Ms. Grove, the Medical Examiner will give you a death certificate with the exact cause of death as soon as he has completed his examination of Amy," Grissom said, unwilling or unable to speak the words to describe what had happened to Amy.

"Why?  Who?" she demanded again.

"We don't know yet, but we are doing everything we can to find out.  We have the best crime lab in the country, and everyone is working hard to find out who's responsible," Sara answered.

"Thank you, Ms. Sidle.  I've got to go now.  My ex-husband is waiting outside to take me home.  He couldn't bring himself to come in here.  Funny ... men are supposed to be the stronger sex," she said, a wan smile on her face.

Gil and Sara stayed next to Ms. Grove as she slowly made her way down the hall to finally collapse into the arms of her ex-husband.  He looked up at Grissom and Sara with a desperate plea in his eyes. 

"We're sorry for your loss," Sara said, answering his silent question.

The man and woman who had been divorced for many years supported each other, reunited in their grief for the death of the one good thing to come from their marriage.

* * * * *

"Where are we?" Grissom asked, looking expectantly around the table.  Warrick was directly to his right, so he began first.

"Nick and I went with the cops to canvass the neighborhood at around seven this morning.  Nothing.  Nobody remembers seeing anything unusual.  A few people had been out in their yards that evening, and remembered seeing Amy drive off for work." 

Catherine took up the moment Warrick stopped speaking.  "I searched all the law enforcement databases for any reference to 'Nosferatu', but didn't get any hits.  I also searched on the M.O., but it's too vague at this point to hit on anything." 

"I'm beginning to build a victim profile of Amy," Sara started.  Everyone at the table noticed that she had used the victim's first name, but no one mentioned it.  "If Nosferatu is, or is going to develop into, a signature killer, it's imperative to know how he or she chooses the victim." 

Grissom began to catalogue every aspect of the crime that they knew, even if it didn't qualify as evidence.  With only one murder to go on, he wouldn't know what would be part of the signature and what would be happenstance.   

The only thing they could do now is wait for the next victim, hoping it would never happen, but knowing that it probably would. 

After their meeting, each hurried off to resume their search for any clue that would point to the killer. 

Grissom sat in his darkened office, holding his head in his hands.  These types of serial killers were the most challenging, because they tend to have much more intelligence than the average criminal.  They are usually very aware of the crime scene, arranging it to suit their signature. 

It could take several murders before the pattern would be clear enough to catch up to his thought processes.  It could take several more to catch him, if they could.  He might disappear as suddenly as he appeared, moving to another location to continue his spree.

* * * * *

"I don't want anyone leaving this building while on duty without a radio and a weapon," Grissom instructed at the beginning of the next shift.  "And, yes, to answer the looks on all of your faces, that includes me.

"Until we get a handle on this guy, I don't want Catherine or Sara to go out alone," he said, quickly holding up a hand to forestall their protestations.  "I'm not being sexist, I'm being cautious.  This guy has killed a female, and we know that typically signature killers keep with their initial victim gender.  I'm not saying one of the men has to be with you, I just don't want you going out without a partner.

"Remember that signature killers may stay near the scene, much like an arsonist.  Or he may return to relive the act.  Stay very alert, and watch each other's backs.

"The other criminals of Clark County have not seen fit to give us a break," he said, handing out assignment slips to Catherine and Sara.  "Catherine, take Warrick on your home invasion.  The occupant says it was her ex-husband who broke down her door and ransacked the house.  Sara, you and Nick head over to the Monaco to handle your burglary.  Everyone keep your radios on.  If another possible victim turns up, I'll call you in on it."

"Who is going to watch your back?" Catherine asked pointedly.

"I'll be in the lab mostly.  If I go out to a scene, I'll make sure there's an officer there.  If it's a DB, I'll call one of you to meet me.  Fair enough?" he asked.

All the heads nodded, each realizing that it wasn't the time for bravado.

* * * * *

Ten days passed without an incident that could remotely be connected to the Nosferatu murder, and the passage of time lulled the team into a false sense that this may have been a one-shot murder, staged to look more ominous in order to deflect suspicion from the real motive.

"At least she hadn't been sexually assaulted," Sara said heavily, looking for the hundredth time at the list she had compiled of Amy's interests and habits.

"That leaves us with no motive, since she wasn't robbed and had no known enemies," Grissom added.

"Strange.  Usually people who murder for the thrill or joy of it also assault the victim in some way.  She hadn't been raped, beaten or tortured.  If anything, she appeared to be treated well, considering," Sara said, shaking her head in consternation.

Other assignments had come and gone, with a few still in investigation, but when she was at the lab, Grissom knew she'd be here, in front of this board.  Despite the week-and-a-half period with no more clues surfacing, Sara wouldn't let Amy's case go.  Though there were very few items listed on the board, she seemed to think that if she stared at it long enough, an epiphany would seize her, telling her who had done this and why.

Gil looked over at her, unseen, since she was wholly absorbed by the board.  He admired her tenacity, on the one hand, but her inability to disengage even a little after ten fruitless days concerned him.  All unsolved crimes were mysteries by definition, but serial killers had a way of making their crimes possess those who investigated them.

He could feel her being drawn into the abyss of Orcus, and he wanted to reach out to her, to keep her from plunging in.  He realized too late that he was acting on his fears when his hand grasped her arm.  She turned to him, her concentration on the case unbroken.

"Sara," he said quietly, gently tugging at her.  "Come away from the board for a little while."  Seeing her unemotional face start to furrow into a frown, he quickly added, "Just for a little while."

"I'm not going to just forget about it.  You're not going to put her picture on your fish corkboard, with all the other cold cases," she said, shaking her head slowly at first, then faster as her emotion built.

"At most labs, cold cases are buried in a file drawer somewhere.  At least we keep ours on the fish so that we're constantly reminded of them," he said in his defense.  He knew she was afraid that he'd close the case, but he had no intention of giving up so soon on a murder this gruesome and seemingly senseless.

"I know what you're thinking," she said nervously.  "Don't take me off this case, Grissom.  At most scenes, you look around, find the evidence, and if you're lucky, you can see the crime in your mind.  I not only see this crime, I can feel it."

"I know you can.  I can see that.  I feel you being drawn into it.  Be careful that you don't lose yourself in it."

"It's all here, right in front of me.  I feel it, but I don't see it," Sara breathed out. 

"Sara, there's no way to decode a cipher without a pattern, a repetition.  Don't beat yourself up because you can't figure it out with so few clues."

"I want to catch him before he can repeat it, Grissom.  I don't want another girl to die because I can't see what's right in front of me," she huffed out in frustration.

"I know," he agreed softly, unconsciously moving his hand soothingly up and down her arm.  Suddenly recognizing what he was doing, his hand stopped, but before he could withdraw it, Sara reached across to lay her own hand atop it for a moment, acknowledging his support. 

"Thanks, Grissom," she murmured, turning out of his grasp to go check on the progress of the evidence from other cases.

Amy's last school picture smiled out from the top of the large white board whereon Grissom and Sidle had listed all known facts about her and about Nosferatu's M.O.  It was left standing along the wall in a layout room to remind them that the story of Amy Grove's life and death wouldn't be complete until they knew who had penned the final chapter.

* * * * *

"Sara, is there an officer there with Nick and you?" Grissom asked over the radio.

"Affirmative," she answered.

"Be ready for me to pick you up in ten minutes," he said over the open airwaves, purposefully not giving any specific information.

"10-4," she confirmed, closing up her field kit and gathering up the evidence she had collected, putting it with Nick's. 

"You be careful, Nicky," she warned.

"I will, Sara," he nodded, then looked around to determine the exact location of the officer in charge of securing the scene.  Satisfied, he returned to his work.

Sara waited in front of the house by the curb, so that all Grissom would have to do is pull up and stop for a few seconds.  He arrived on schedule and she heard the doors unlock as he came to a halt with the passenger door directly in front of her.  As soon as she was in and buckled up, Grissom gunned the engine and the SUV took off. 

Sara was surprised;  though she frequently drove that way, Grissom was typically a much more conservative driver, especially with someone else in the car.

After a moment, he began to speak tensely, "Sara, why were you waiting alone outside in the dark?"

"I was just out there a few minutes, Grissom.  There was an officer right inside the house, and I've got my weapon," she said, defending an action that she had to admit she had done without giving any thought to it at all.

"I want you to start being more careful.  I mean it.  You take too many risks," he said heavily.

"I can take care of myself, Grissom.  I go to the range to practice and I always qualify with good scores in marksmanship.  I've studied unarmed combat.  And I'm tall for a woman.  I can protect myself," she said with a touch of defensiveness.

"I know," he sighed out.  "I just don't want anything to happen to you ... to any of you," he added quickly.

Grissom sometimes wished that Sara weren't so headstrong, independent and argumentative.  He didn't want to explain why;  he just wanted her to be more careful.

But then, he reminded himself, if she weren't like that, she wouldn't be Sara.  He had fantasized about how fulfilling it would be to be needed by this woman who didn't appear to need anybody.

"Where are we going?" she asked, interrupting his reverie.

"The university.  Nineteen-year-old Stefanie Potts was found dead between two dormitories," he explained, pulling off Tropicana into the parking lot flanked by residence halls on one side and a pavilion on the other.

"Nosferatu?" she asked.

"Evidently," he answered, pulling the SUV into the slot next to Brass's car. 

The two walked along the row of residences, each feeling the familiar milieu reminding them of their days in the enclave of academia – it seemed so safe and cloistered when they were in college. 

They followed the stream of light pouring out from between two of the dorms, turning to find a crowd of students, some stunned and some hysterical, surrounding the taped-off area. 

Harsh lights were set up at each corner, trained on Stefanie, driving back the darkness of night.  Moths flitted madly around the halogen lamps, succumbing suddenly when they ventured too close to their intense heat. 

The lights illuminated a scene that looked like it should have been in a funeral home instead of on a lawn.  As with the victim before her, Stefanie was laid out with her legs discreetly together, her hands on her chest, and eyes closed.

David was already there and had completed his preliminary examination, allowing the forensics team immediate access to the body. 

"TOD was approximately two hours ago," David recited as soon as the pair crossed the tape. "Preliminary cause of death is exsanguination."

Grissom and Sara knelt down on either side of David, who was positioned at her head.  He tilted her head over to expose the gaping wound at her throat.  "I think we should be able to get some good impressions this time.  Look at the dentation marks at this edge of the wound," he instructed, pointing.  Laying the flap of loose tissue back in place, the outline of a row of teeth became evident.

"Livor mortis?" Grissom asked, rolling her over to check the lividity pattern.

"It's begun, and she doesn't appear to have been moved."

"This isn't enough blood, David," Grissom noted, twisting in each direction to scan two broad arcs.

"She on the lawn.  Some of it could have soaked in," he theorized.

"But it's a small pool of blood.  A torn artery should spray.  There should be blood drops all over this taped-off area," he said, looking around the grass for any sign of blood.

David nodded at the incongruity.

"I want her tagged for special handling, David.  Bag her hands and feet.  Turn her clothes inside out before bagging them.  Swab the wound for DNA.  I want every inch of her examined for trace.  Don't wash her.  Got that?"

"Yes, sir," he said, involuntarily gulping. 

Brass approached and said, "No 'Nosferatu' written anywhere."

"Didn't have to," Grissom replied.  "He or she already told us the name with the first victim.  We are expected to recognize the handiwork from now on."

Sara had begun taking pictures from every angle.  Without making it obvious, she occasionally snapped shots that included the crowd behind them on every side ... just in case.  She wondered as she peered at the crowd through the viewfinder:  what would the Undead look like?

* * * * *

Again, Grissom and Sara found themselves in the morgue viewing room, this time with a man and a woman who were clinging to each other staring with expectant dread at a black screen.  The cyan face of Stefanie Potts suddenly appeared on the monitor, and Mrs. Potts turned to bury her face in her husband's chest, her hand grabbing desperately at his shirt.

"That's our daughter," Mr. Potts said evenly, clearing his throat when the first word caught in it.

"We're sorry for your loss," Grissom said, trying not to sound as rehearsed as it was.  How many times had he said those exact words to a grieving family member? 

"What happened?" Mr. Potts asked, looking down at his wife as she shook her head desperately back and forth.

"Take me away from here, Dave.  Please get me out of here," she pleaded hoarsely.

"Mr. Potts, once we know all the details, a detective will get in touch with you," Sara said, seeing that Mrs. Potts couldn't stand to hear any of the details.

Mr. Potts led his wife out of the viewing room, supporting her with a hand around her waist.

"No matter how many times we do this, it doesn't get any easier," Sara murmured, looking at Stefanie's pale, yet peaceful, face on the screen.

"No, it doesn't," Grissom agreed, sighing.

* * * * *

Sara stood in front of the white board, dry-erase marker in hand.  She put up a column for Stefanie next to Amy's column, listing her characteristics.

Stepping back, Sara scanned the two lists, seeing very little in common.  One was a senior in high school; the other a sophomore in college.  Still, they were in the same age range, so Sara left age as a possible victim profile characteristic. 

One had strawberry blond hair;  the other was brunette.  Hair color was ruled out. 

Amy had blue eyes;  Stefanie had brown.  Eye color, out.

Amy was 5'3" tall;  Stefanie was 5'9" tall.  Height, out.

Amy was cute, in a teenaged way;  Stefanie was more mature-looking, despite being only just under two years older.  But she, too, was attractive in a wholesome manner.

Both were female;  both were Caucasian. 

So far, Sara's victim profile consisted of only four common characteristics:  young, attractive, white females. 

She walked over to Nosferatu's side of the board and wrote "male" and "Caucasian" under the nickname.

Grissom was leaning against the doorframe, watching Sara as she scanned each board, making additions and deletions, then standing back to study them.

"Not much to go on, is there?" he asked, startling her.

"Damn, Grissom!  You scared the shit out of me!" she gasped, clutching at her chest.

"Sorry," he shrugged, pushing himself back up to vertical and walking in to stand next to her, reviewing the boards.

"Not that I disagree, but what makes you sure Nosferatu is a male?" he asked.

"First of all, the vast majority of serial killers are male.  Second, Stefanie was a good-sized girl, and it would take an unusually large or strong female to subdue her without leaving more marks on her body.  Third, I ... I ... Never mind," she said, shaking her head.

"What were you going to say?" Grissom prodded.

"Nothing.  It wasn't scientific," she said and smiled apologetically.

"But it was important enough for you to take into consideration while building your profile.  I'd like to know your third reason," he pressed.

"It's just a feeling I got when I was at the scenes.  I just feel like it's a man."

She glanced sideways at him for a second to gauge his reaction, but he was as impassive as usual.

"I know, it's silly.  Completely without scientific merit," she mumbled, embarrassment beginning to paint her light cheeks a rose tint.

"Sara, profiling isn't a science.  Since it deals with the psychological, sometimes we have to go with what our instincts tell us.  If your gut tells you this is a male, then it probably is," he said definitively.  "I just wanted to make sure you weren't just going with the odds."

"I think I've aptly demonstrated that I am not one to go with the odds, Grissom," she said, paying him back for at least one of the myriad of double entendres he had so frequently served up to her.

Grissom looked at her without comment, until it was well past uncomfortable for her to maintain the eye contact.  He allowed his head to shift over to the side, indicating his contemplation of her comment.  Able to bear it no longer, she turned back to the board, grateful she had a plausible excuse for breaking free from his gaze.

Finally piercing the viscous silence, Grissom told her, "If you are done here for now, hook up with Warrick on his case.  He's at the Tangiers, room 311.  The guest in an adjoining room called in a domestic disturbance.  It might be helpful to have a woman there," he said, justifying his decision to have two CSIs on a case that probably would not take very long for one to wrap up.

"Ooo-kaaay," she drawled, hesitantly.  "And I'm supposed to do what when I get there?  I mean, these people don't even live here.  We're going to go through the motions, the guy will get a stern talking to, and they'll go home." she rebutted, becoming more strident.

"We don't make those decisions.  We collect and analyze evidence relating to crimes."

"These murders are a lot more important than tagging along with Warrick on some crime where there's no mystery whatsoever as to what happened and who the perp is."

"Last time I checked, spousal abuse was still a crime in Nevada," he shot back, frustrated that he couldn't divert her from this case without an argument.

"Why do you want to waste my time like that, when we've got two dead girls with their throats ripped out?"

"Sara, I didn't come in here to argue, but to give you an assignment," turning on his heel to leave before it could escalate further.

What had started as a comfortable encounter, focusing on the task instead of on their personal interaction, had quickly become tense and unsettled, as was often the case the past few months. 

He was wasting Sara's time on the abuse case, and he knew it.  She knew that he knew it.  She was contrite about speaking to him as she had, but one thing she hated was wasting time. 

She didn't want to be distracted from the Nosferatu murders, since much of profiling required trying to get into a mindset where one could see what the killer saw when he first spied a victim, and feel what he felt when he took her life.  She looked down the hall that had swallowed up Grissom, wondering why he was purposefully taking her out of the mindset.

* * * * *

With crimes such as these, it was easy to get carried away searching for clues instead of searching for evidence, and Sara realized in an epiphanous moment that she had made a glaring mistake at the first scene.  Apparently, everyone else also overlooked it, since no one had mentioned it in the almost two weeks since it occurred.  Now, it might be too late. 

Evidence can be persistent, but it can also be time-sensitive, a paradox that has to be kept in mind at all times.

She felt her side to ensure she was carrying her firearm.  Often, in the building, she and the other CSIs removed them.  Satisfied, she grabbed her radio and her kit to go join Warrick.  But first, she had a stop to make on the way, hoping she could remedy her mistake.

Turning into the alleyway, she was relieved to see that the remoteness of the scene had played into her favor.  No one had washed away the message in blood.  Being late summer, it hadn't rained in over a month, a blessing for criminalists, especially criminalists who forgot to do something at a scene. 

The wall faced north, so it was not exposed to direct sunlight during any part of the day, making it likely that the wall did not heat up sufficiently to destroy the evidence she had forgotten to collect.

She mentally beat herself up for her omission.  She had tested the writing for the presence of human blood, but then allowed herself to get sidetracked.  To establish that the blood indeed belonged to the victim, she needed to take samples for Greg to compare to the victim's blood. 

But, perhaps more important, it was possible that the killer used his finger to apply the blood to the wall.  As he scraped across the rough brick, he likely left epithelials if he were not wearing gloves.  And, even if he were, such a rough surface could have breached the thin latex.

She took multiple scrapings from each letter of the name, not wanting to make the same mistake twice.  It was dangerous to miss anything when it came to a serial killer.  She labeled the bags and shoved them in a zippered pocket of her vest, where they couldn't fall out. 

Feeling the burden of guilt lifting, she smiled and made her way back to the SUV to join up with Warrick.  She knew that she probably wouldn't have to put much thought or effort into Warrick's case, so she would be free to think about Nosferatu.

* * * * *

Abuse cases always stirred up a multiplicity of emotions in Sara, some that the others who worked with her probably never suspected.  Yes, she would almost always become disgusted and angry that a man would take advantage of his superior strength and beat a woman over what was likely an unimportant disagreement. 

Short of protecting a life, she couldn't rationally fathom why anyone would purposefully inflict pain on someone, especially someone they ostensibly loved.

However, there was another emotion that would occasionally surface to her conscious-ness, but she would fight with all of her might to push it back down.  She would certainly never let anyone else see it, because it seemed so contradictory, so hypocritical.  That emotion was fear. 

Not fear that a man would abuse her, because she had vowed long ago that she would never allow herself to be victimized that way, and she prepared herself to be able to defend against it.

No, the fear she felt was that she, too, sometimes had to struggle to control the effects of her own anger.  What moral high ground could she claim over Scott Shelton, she had asked herself on many occasions, when she was perfectly willing to physically fight him when he angered her?  How many times had she fought the urge to hit someone who had pushed her to fury? 

Though it was often socially tolerated for a woman to slap a man, she knew it was still abusive, still stemming from the same primal instinct to physically hurt the other.  She could think of several occasions when she wanted to slap a suspect, or even Grissom, more than she had ever wanted anything in her life.  She would have to suddenly retreat in order to regain control over her emotions.  She understood all too well that the abuser is often not rational at the time.

She could not imagine a scenario where Grissom would ever be physically abusive to her, no matter what the circumstance.  So, it was all the more disturbing to her that she would be tempted to strike him, though she had to admit that it was normally when he was engaging in what she considered emotional abuse. 

But she also realized that all abusers have an excuse, and she refused to allow his treatment of her lead her to believe that it would justify violence of any sort, any level.

* * * * *

Logging in at the door, Sara made her way to Warrick, shrugging and shaking her head to indicate that she had no clue why she had been sent.  He smiled knowingly and shrugged back.  "I'm pretty much all done here, Sara.  Your timing is right on the money," he laughed.

"I still also get credit for the solve, right?" she asked, in mock-innocence.

"They still call it a solve when they was never any question about the case?" he snorted, escorting her out of the door and down the hall towards the elevators.  "Had dinner?" he asked.

"I don't even remember if I had breakfast or lunch," she mused.

"Meet me at the diner, okay?  We'll celebrate cracking this case," he chuckled.

"You're on," Sara agreed, pointing a finger at him as she turned into the elevator.

When she pulled into the diner parking lot, she radioed Dispatch to let them know that she and Warrick were on dinner break.  Monitoring their radio transmissions, Grissom sat in his office, wondering why it was so easy for everyone else to simply have dinner with each other without letting it swell into an ethical dilemma. 

He had gone out to eat with Warrick before, and Nick as well.  He had eaten alone with Catherine numerous times, both out in public and at their respective homes.  It never required any soul-searching. 

How much easier would this all be if he were just one of them, like Nick or Warrick?  No one would think a thing about them going out for dinner.  But he had never eaten alone with Sara – only in a group.  He reminded himself that there is safety in numbers.

If she had just said that morning several months ago, "I know you're concerned about some things I've been dealing with since the explosion.  Let's get together later and talk about it over dinner," then he might have considered it to be a work-related meeting, or at worst a harmless diversion.  But "Let's see what happens" set his moral compass spinning, and he had to admit that he didn't have a clue how to react. 

As it was, he had to stop and gather the courage to tell her that, but at least he did it this time rather than pretending there was nothing between them, as he had been doing to over a year. 

It wasn't what he really wanted to say, and it wasn't what she wanted to hear, but it was the God's honest truth for once. 

* * * * *

The next night, Greg paged Sara that the DNA samples taken from Stefanie's throat were processed.   CODIS didn't turn up any matches, but that wasn't surprising considering that VICAP also had no instances of this signature. 

There was something unusual about the tests, but he couldn't tell her much at this point.  He told her that he would let her know when the sample from the wall was ready to match against the first sample.

Grissom entered the DNA/Chem Lab shortly after Sara had left, and Greg reiterated his findings.  Grissom was visibly perplexed and asked to see the blood samples from the wall.  Greg handed him one of the bags, not quite sure why there was any confusion. 

Grissom read the case information on the front of the plastic bag.  The date and time were noted as day before yesterday at 2:25 a.m.  The initials of the collector were 'S.S.'  Grissom slammed the bag down on the counter and left abruptly, with Greg feeling like he must have awakened in an parallel universe, since nothing was making any sense. 

Grissom walked quickly to his office and shut the door, practically throwing himself down into his chair.  "Breathe, breathe," he said aloud, trying to calm himself before he spoke to her.  He picked up the phone to call her pager, leaving her a message to come to his office – 'urgent' was tacked on for good measure.  He didn't trust himself to remain calm enough to call her cell phone.

Working in the evidence examination room, Sara looked down at her pager, reading Grissom's message.  "Busted," she said aloud, exhaling loudly.  She had not purposefully disobeyed him.  She honestly had not given it one iota of thought.  She had a job to do and she did it.  End of story.  Unfortunately, Grissom was going to add a postscript.

She trudged towards his office like a recalcitrant student towards the principal's office.  She knew she had to go, but she had to force herself to take each step of the trek.

Knocking on the door, she tried to be cheery and stuck her head in.  "You wanted to see me?" she asked brightly.

"Come in and shut the door," he answered tersely, his eyes a steely gray in the lamp light.

"Grissom, I'm sorry!  I just ..."

Holding up a hand, he interrupted her.  "I don't want to hear any of your excuses.  I don't want any explanations.  There are no reasons that justify the gross negligence of your actions."

"We needed that evidence," she said pleadingly.

"Was the entire PD not available?  Was there not a soul from the Crime Lab you could call?  I know for a fact that I was sitting right here in my office.  There's no excuse, Sara.  None."

"I was on my way to meet up with Warrick when I thought of it," she said, slightly altering the timeline of the truth.

"Do you have a radio?  Do you have a cell phone?" he countered.

"Yes," she hissed lowly, defeated. 

"Sara, don't you remember how it was that you came to be here?  Don't you remember how devastated we all were over what happened to Holly Gribbs?  And we had only known her a few hours, for God's sake!  Can you even imagine how we would feel if it were you?"

"I can imagine how I would feel if it were you," she answered in a broken whisper, not at the moment realizing or caring if it was too revealing.

"Well, you aren't the only one with feelings, Sara," he retorted in a hushed, anguished voice.

"I'm sorry," she repeated, this time contritely.

"I've told you before that you take too many risks.  If you don't care enough about yourself to be careful, do you care enough about the rest of us to not put us through that?" he asked, trying to sound authoritative, but his voice wavering at the end.

"Yes, I care.  I didn't do it on purpose.  Please believe me," she said, pleadingly.

"That's what scares me the most," he said quietly.  "How can I believe you won't put yourself in danger again, without realizing it?"

Sara thought about his question, apprehending that it wasn't simply rhetorical.  If she couldn't find a way to assure Grissom that she'd be safe, he'd confine her to the lab.  "You can partner me with someone until it's over.  I promise I won't go anywhere without my partner," she vowed.

"Okay, fair enough," he said.  "Warrick has gone back out.  He's with Vega," he quickly added, sensing her bristling at the thought of Warrick getting more leeway than she did.  "I'll be your partner tonight.  I don't want you to leave this building until 7:00 a.m. without me being with you.  Understood?"

"Understood," she said.  "May I be excused now?" she asked deferentially.

"Yes," he answered, glad that the confrontation was over.  He needed some alone time to decompress from the oppressive fear and anger that had overwhelmed him since he realized she had returned to the scene alone.

* * * * *

Sara had taped up all the pictures from the two scenes and reviewing them to ensure that they had not missed anything.  She looked closely at the crowd shots from the university, hoping that she would recognize the face of pure evil somewhere in the throng, but they all looked like shocked, scared college students.

Her stomach began to rumble and ache a bit, but she ignored it, as usual.  Just then, the thought struck her.  "How freaking hilarious is this?" she said aloud, bursting out in a belly laugh.  "This could be fun," she said, bolting out of the lab to find Grissom.

She caught up with him in the Trace Lab, checking to see if Hodges had found anything on the two victims' clothes.  She waited discreetly by the door, falling in step with him as he left. 

"Grissom," she said seriously, "I need to eat."

"And?" he asked, not sure why she was sharing this with him.

"I didn't bring my lunch, since I've usually been eating out with whomever I've been working with the past few weeks.  I need to go out to get something to eat.  I haven't eaten since last night," she added, scrunching her face up into an innocent 'I'm sorry' look. 

Grissom stopped and rubbed his forehead for a moment, deciding which was the lesser of the two evils:  letting her go by herself and having to retract his earlier demand, or going out to eat with her alone.  On the one hand, it should be safe for her to go directly home or to a restaurant, then return.  But one the other hand, once she was out of his sight, he had no control over her, nor apparently did she have control over herself.

She had eaten every night the past two weeks in the company of one of the other CSIs, and he willed himself to pretend he was just another CSI.  He could do this.  It wasn't a date, after all – just lunch, or what passes for lunch at that hour.

"Okay," he agreed.  "Where do you want to go?"

Sara was proud of herself for maintaining her composure.  She had fully expected him to make an exception and allow her to leave his sight to go eat.  She would have bet money on it.

"I could grab something at home.  Or any place that serves salad will be fine," she offered.

"Let's go," he said, resignation in his voice. 

* * * * *

Sara was pleasantly surprised that he took her to a vegan restaurant on Sandhill Road.  It wasn't all that far from the lab, and it wasn't a complete tourist trap.  They served vegetarian and vegan dishes and absolutely no meat.  She was curious as to what Grissom was going to find to eat there.

Grissom ordered a salad and spring rolls, eschewing the mock-meat dishes – he liked his meat real.  Sara chuckled and held up two fingers to order the same.

"This is a pleasant surprise," she said.  "I've been wanting to try this place out, but none of the others would come with me," she laughed.

"You could have come by yourself," Grissom suggested.

"I don't like to eat at restaurants alone," she said, with a hint of sadness.  She quickly glossed over it with a smile and said, "Thanks for picking this place."  She thought about the past, when he didn't even realize she was a vegetarian. 

Now tonight he was respectful enough to not take her anywhere that serves meat at all, though he must be aware that the others eat meat around her all the time.  She sensed that it was an apology of sorts, more apropos than the plant, if not as timely.

Grissom made small talk until the food arrived, asking Sara if she planned to take a vacation this year.  She usually took her vacation time a day here and a day there, instead of an entire week or two, spent relaxing somewhere else.  When she said that she hadn't given it any thought, he reminded her that she was soon going to be at the limit of how much time she could accrue. 

"I guess it really doesn't matter to me if I stop accruing vacation time," she said honestly.  "What am I going to do with the five weeks I've got on the books now?  I don't mind visiting my friends and relatives for a couple of days, but I'd kill myself if I had to be around my folks for a week or more!" she laughed.  "And I sure don't want to take off two weeks and lie around my apartment.  The boredom alone would send me over the edge."

"You could travel.  Take a trip somewhere interesting," Grissom suggested.

"I don't like to travel alone," she answered.

"For such a loner, Sara, you don't like to do very many things by yourself," Grissom laughed.

"I never said I was a loner.  I may be independent, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy the company of others," she explained.

They had just finished their salads and were debating whether to have dessert when Grissom's pager went off, startling him with its buzzing vibration and shrill beep.  He pulled it off his belt to read the text message, sighing, "It must be a cosmic rule that I never get to finish a dinner date.  We've got another DB," he said, turning in his chair to wave for the check.

When did the onerous burden of having to accompany her to eat become a 'dinner date,' she wondered?  Phasing back into reality, she told Grissom, "I'll get the check;  you get the Tahoe.  I'll meet you out front.  Don't worry, I'll stay inside until you pull up," she promised. 

"Be careful," she admonished.  He smiled and nodded his agreement, then weaved his way through the tables, directing the waiter to give the check to Sara on his way out.

* * * * *

She was found lying on a park bench, hands crossed and eyes closed, just like the other two victims.  The ground was wet and muddy from the sprinklers that had been running until midnight.  Apparently, the killer didn't think it proper to leave her lying in the muck.

"This is starting to get real old, real fast," Brass groaned.  "Do you have anything on this guy?"

"He's a white male, probably thirty-five to forty-five years old.  We have his DNA, we presume, but nothing to match it to," Grissom answered with a tired voice.

"Anything on the victim profile?" Brass asked, hopefully.

Grissom deferred to Sara.  "Not really.  The only thing we can see that they have in common is that they are young, pretty, white females.  We are still checking for any commonalities in their daily lives, but they come from different backgrounds, different parts of town, and they move in different social circles."

"So he's choosing them randomly," Brass concluded.  "Victims of opportunity?"

"No.  I don't think so," Sara opined, drawing interested looks from Grissom and Brass both.  "I just don't know how yet, but I know it's not random," she said quietly, staring at Monica Fuqua's peacefully reposed body.

* * * * *

Sara was quiet on the drive back to the lab.  Grissom wasn't sure whether he should talk to her or not, so he settled on the safe course and left her to her thoughts.  She shook her head as if she were trying to dislodge a thought. 

"He's a cold-blooded killer, but he's respectful and courteous to them, both before and after death.  Such a paradox," she said, squinting her eyes at the bright lights along the road.

"It is almost unheard of among serial killers.  After all, they typically kill out of anger.  Even those who think they are 'saving' the victims by killing them often beat or torture them before death, as a ritualistic cleansing of sins," Grissom added.

At the lab, he escorted her to the layout room to begin adding Monica's information to Amy's and Stefanie's. 

"He either ambushes them suddenly, or they know him, or he's not frightening to them for some reason," Sara said abruptly.  "There's very little bruising on any of them to indicate much of a struggle."

They stood staring at the boards, hoping the answer would offer itself up, disappointed that it didn't.

"Grissom, we need to think more about the actual attacks.  We know the blood evidence left at the scenes doesn't seem to fit the crimes, so we're missing something."

They stood, shoulder to shoulder, before she reached out and absently touched his arm.  "Let's see if we can act out a scenario that doesn't involve much violence prior to the actual kill," she suggested.  "You be Nosferatu.  Looking at the bite marks, what's your position relative to the victim?"

Grissom looked at the photos and shifted his head a little this way, then a little that, trying to approximate the angle.

"Okay, that looks pretty good," Sara said, stopping him.  "Now all the victims had their throats torn, with the lower mandible of the attacker located about midline and the upper on the side, just past the carotid." 

From his cock-eyed viewpoint, Grissom watched in amusement as Sara took a grease pen and drew such a wound on her own throat.  She looked at him to verify its placement, and he agreed.

"Now, considering that the victims were different heights, how do you get that same angle, more or less, every time?" she asked, moving to face him.  Standing only inches apart, she moved her head and neck around to try to match the angle of Nosferatu's bite.

No matter which way she angled herself, she was not able to line up the bite.  She was too high and the bite was more horizontal. 

Several times Grissom had to close his eyes and force himself to remember that this was an experiment, and he was only play-acting.  He kept finding himself distracted as Sara willingly presented her neck to him, over and over.

She moved in closer, putting her throat within centimeters of Grissom's mouth.  She could feel his hot breath on her neck and it made her feel light-headed.  As she shifted to the side to match the angle, leaning her head back, she lost her balance and began to teeter backwards. 

Grissom caught her as she began to fall, and it hit them both at once:  she was now several inches lower and perpendicular to him.  Without thinking, Grissom lowered his mouth to her neck to match the bite angle perfectly, his mouth lingering on her skin for a moment – a moment that seemed like eternity to them both.

"Help me up, Grissom" Sara barely managed to squeak out, her mouth dry and throat feeling tight.  She might have wished to stay that way forever, had her back not screamed curses at the unnatural position, not to mention how it might have looked to passers-by.

He took his lips from her neck and lifted her.  Neither could easily shake the feelings that the sudden and violently erotic contact had evoked.  They turned to concentrate on the pictures, struggling valiantly to refocus.

"That's why no struggle to speak of.  They were caught off-balance and he immediately went in for the kill," Grissom said, feeling like his cheeks were glowing from the heat of excitement and embarrassment.

"So we've probably got the approach.  He's either behind them or to the side, grabs them, tips them off-balance and attacks," she summarized.

"I find it almost impossible to believe that there's no sexual component," Grissom observed, knowing that it had certainly been impossible for him to ignore how arousing the encounter was.

Sara turned and raised an eyebrow and the corners of her mouth at him, sensing that he was speaking from very recent experience.  She noticed that he was apparently working hard to look as stoic and impassive as he normally did, but she could see the small facial muscles tic involuntarily, revealing his tension.

"Maybe there is.  But there's no sexual assault," she said, not looking at him. 

"Perhaps an actual sexual assault wasn't necessary," Grissom posited.  "He may have been ... uh, satisfied ... with the contact, or the blood."

"Nosferatu bites her, tearing the carotid, but there's no arterial spray.  Why not?" Sara asked aloud, feeling the need to change the focus of their discussion.

"Because he keeps his lips over the wound until her heart stops pumping," Grissom answered pedantically, trying to push the feeling of his lips on Sara's neck out of his thoughts, but failing.

"But her heart wouldn't stop pumping without significant blood loss," Sara countered.

"He swallowed it," Grissom opined, as though it were a natural outgrowth of the discussion.

"Quarts?" Sara retorted in doubt.

"That would be unlikely," Grissom agreed.  "But maybe he drank some of it, until the shock of the attack and the diversion of the blood from the brain made them pass out.  Then perhaps he collected it.  But not all of it, since we found pooling."

As it was almost an hour past the end of shift, Grissom suggested that they adjourn.  Sara didn't make a move to leave, wanting to ride what she felt was a rising wave of understanding of the dynamics of the cases. 

"We need to rest.  If we're tired, we'll miss something," he said in his defense.  "We'll start fresh tonight," he promised, anxious to leave the room that threatened to overwhelm him with its visceral mix of sex and violence.

* * * * *

"I don't know what's wrong with it," Greg answered defensively, his eyes unable to settle on either Grissom or Sara, so they bounced between the two.

"All I know is that there is something wrong with it," he added in confusion.

Seeing that Grissom was beginning to lose patience, Sara interceded.  "Greg, wrong in what way?  Can you just tell us why you think something's wrong?"

"There are values for the loci that just aren't right.  Are you sure they aren't contaminated?  Maybe with animal DNA?  I've looked everywhere, I've e-mailed people I know.  No one recognizes any of these markers."

"Well, DNA analysis is still a relatively new process," Sara said, defending the lack of knowledge.

"Not that new," Greg disagreed.  "We've put hundreds of thousands of DNA patterns in the databases.  We've mapped the human genome.  Surely someone would have seen this before.  If they had, they would have written it up.  Sara, if this is uncontaminated DNA, then this is freaking weird," Greg said in a low voice.

"Well, at least it'll be airtight in court!" Sara said, smiling at him and reaching over to pat his shoulder.

"What makes you think it might not be contaminated?" Grissom asked sternly.

"Well, contaminated DNA normally has three or four values for each locus, instead of one or two, so you know it came from more than one source.  These all have only two values, but they are definitely weird."

"Two homozygous donors?" Grissom asked, grasping at straws.  "Each would only contribute one allele, so it would look like a pair from a heterozygous donor."

"For all thirteen loci?" Greg fairly squeaked.  "Do you have any idea what the odds are of that happening?  The odds of any one person being homozygous for all thirteen loci are almost infinitely small.  The odds of two people being homozygous, and their DNA being in the same sample, well, they might not be absolute zero, but I'd say it's like one chance in the universe of it happening, if that much."

Not wanting Grissom to challenge Greg, knowing that he would already try his damnedest to find the answer, Sara asked Grissom to join her in the layout room to go over the profiles.  They had been working twelve straight hours, and it was nearly lunchtime in the world of the Daywalkers, but she wasn't nearly ready to call it a day.

Looking at the boards, Grissom said, "The number of similarities is getting smaller, instead of larger.  It's regressing."

Sara thought for a moment, then mused, "Maybe we're looking at this all wrong.  Maybe it's not something they are that's the key, but something they aren't."

"They aren't a lot of things, Sara," Grissom countered tiredly, running his fingers absently through his hair.

"I know, I know," she agreed.  "But let's look at some of the more obvious things before we decide to give up this line of reasoning.  Let's see, they aren't men.  They aren't children.  They aren't old," she began.

"They aren't married.  They aren't homeless.  They aren't sick," Grissom added.

"That could be it.  I think I may be starting to get a mental picture, Grissom," Sara ventured.

"Tell me," he prodded.

"He chooses women because they are easier to kill quickly.  And these victims are probably safe.  It's about the blood.  He wants the blood, for whatever reason.  Certainly he exposes himself to it, possibly even ingests some of it.  It's critical that he feel relatively assured that the people he chooses don't have a blood-borne pathogen, and these women are in the lowest risk groups."

"How would he know that?  Just because they look wholesome and healthy doesn't mean they are," Grissom said doubtfully.

"He knows somehow," she mused, tapping a finger to her lips in thought.  "I've got an idea," she said suddenly, and she nearly bowled him over pushing past him to get out of the room.  Grissom stood for a moment trying to mentally catch up, but decided it would be faster to follow her to see what she was planning to do.

She plopped down heavily in her chair and pulled out the worn, dog-eared yellow pages, thumbing through quickly to the blood banks.  Grissom watched from over her shoulder, his thoughts beginning to get up to speed with her own.

"You think they've given blood lately?" he asked.

"Either that, or had a physical exam lately," she answered almost breathlessly.  "I'm going to check the blood banks.  It might save us some time if you check to see who their doctors were, while I'm doing this," she suggested.

"Yes, ma'am," he said, with a grin, heading off to his office to contact the families to get information regarding their doctors.  Sara always reminded him of a bloodhound, both impatient and infinitely determined, a seeming paradox.  She had picked up the scent now, and there would be no stopping her.

The thought was energizing to him, but then he felt a growing unease.  He would have to watch her carefully.  She had held to her promise to be more careful, but he had little faith that she would even remember the promise once she was hot on the trail.

Grissom spoke with the victims' next-of-kin, but couldn't find any correlation between the victims' doctors, any hospitals that administered tests, or any medical procedure that would have required any blood tests. 

He stood up slowly, feeling the stiffness that had settled into his joints as he sat immobile after too many hours at work.  Times like these made him feel old.  Exhaling deeply, he decided to see where Sara was at with her blood bank calls, and tell her that they needed to call it a day.  They would have precious little time to rest before it would be time to return to work.

He scanned her workspace, but all he saw was the yellow pages, still lying open on her desk.  He made a pass through the halls, peeking into each lab and the break room, then heading for the locker room.  Finding it empty, he began to feel the dread creep back up.  He had lost track of her.

He snatched up his cell phone and pressed the speed dial button programmed with her cell phone number.  After three rings, she picked up.

"Sara, where are you?" he blurted out, unceremoniously.

"I'm at the blood bank on Rainbow," she said calmly.  "And, hello to you, too."

"Who's with you?" he asked gruffly.

"No one.  I'm not at a crime scene, Grissom.  I'm in a public place in broad daylight, for God's sake," she answered, a bit more defensively than she would have liked.

"That is not the agreement we had," he countered, brusquely.

"Fine.  Grab a warrant for the employee and volunteer list and come down here then," she said shortly.

"What did you find?" he asked.  "They aren't just going to hand me a warrant."

"All three women have recently donated blood here.  That much I could get.  But they can't or won't give me the list of employees or volunteers without a warrant."

"Come back here until I get the warrant," he ordered.

"I'm already here, Grissom," she snapped.  "I see no reason to drive all the way back to the lab to wait for you.  There are plenty of people here," she assured him, hitting the end button to cut off any response.

"Damn it, Sara!" Grissom cursed, pressing in Brass's number to wake him and get him working on the warrant.  He wasn't going to wait.

* * * * *

The director of the blood bank had been very cooperative, but she was sensitive to her employees and wouldn't divulge any information without a warrant.  However, she gave Sara free rein to speak with whomever would voluntarily speak with her, and access into any part of the office she wished to inspect.  Her only stipulation was that her employees and clients were to be treated with the utmost courtesy, not as suspects.

Recognizing that many of the workers were volunteers and the others were hardly well-paid, Sara forced herself to make the mental shift that is the difference between talking with witnesses and suspects.  After all, most or all of these people were giving what they had to give to society, asking for little or nothing in return.

She scanned the office looking for males first;  there were three that she could see.  Only one was as big as Grissom;  the other two were relatively short and thin.  However, Sara knew not to discount them, since a 145-pound man was still very much stronger than a 145-pound woman.

Looking at the nameplates, Sara made her choice, deciding to speak with the larger male first.  She approached him gingerly, asking, "May I have a word with you?" and smiling.  "My name is Sara Sidle.  I'm with the Las Vegas Crime Lab."

"Of course," he answered, with a slight accent.  He rose and swept his right hand towards the chair next to his desk.  After she sat down, he resumed his seat. 

"Your name is Nikolai ..."

"Comenescu," he completed for her.  "It's Romanian," he answered, to her unspoken question.

"How fascinating.  Were you born there?" she asked innocently.

"Yes," he answered.  "But I've lived all over the world.  I have only recently arrived in your city."

Pulling out the antemortem photographs of the victims, Sara laid them out on his desk.  "Have you ever seen any of these women?" she asked evenly, studying his eyes for recognition.  She saw nothing but their almost black depths.

"I see so many people every day.  It is hard to remember specific people," he shrugged.

"Mr. Comenescu ..."

"Please, call me Nikolai.  It is easier."

"Nikolai, have you ever heard of Nosferatu?" she asked.

"Of course.  It is the legend of the Undead.  Vampires," he answered, without elaboration.

"Tell me about them," she asked, leaning forward in her chair, giving him her undivided attention.

"The myth?  Legend has it that they are shape-shifters who consume human blood.  They are supposedly repelled by garlic and Christian symbols.  They can be killed easily by beheading.  The other methods most people hear about are from Hollywood, not Eastern Europe," he laughed.

"Why do they consume human blood?" she asked, leaning forward in interest.

"Because that is what they eat," he answered simply.  "They are not the same as other people.  Other people eat the flesh and blood of animals.  Nosferatu eat the blood of humans;  they are like humans, and yet they are not entirely human.  They cannot help what they are, or what they must do to survive."

"I don't eat animals," she couldn't help but retort.

"Yes, but you still kill to eat, do you not?" he countered.  "Besides, you can digest both plants and animals.  Nosferatu cannot.  They can only digest blood.  In a desperate situation, it can be animal blood, but it is not the same and Nosferatu cannot survive long on it."

"Do Nosferatu have special powers or attributes that average humans don't?" she asked, wondering if the barely restrained passion of Nikolai's responses were due to his getting caught up in the romance of his country's legends, or whether he actually believed in vampires.

"No," he answered simply.  "I do not believe so, or there would be only Nosferatu left on Earth ... if they exist at all," he added quickly.

"That would be counterproductive.  It is a poor parasite that drives its host to extinction," she retorted.

"Indeed.  I suppose you are right.  I have never given it that much thought," he said casually.  "I certainly never considered them to be parasites."

"What have you considered them to be?" she asked noncombatively.

"Just ... different, I suppose.  Like people, just different," he answered, his eyes smiling, though his face seemed impassive.

"How would one recognize one of the Nosferatu?" she asked.

"I do not know.  I suppose that people depended on banes and religious symbols to identify them and to keep them at bay.  I do not know how they are outwardly different," he answered. 

"This is an interesting discussion, madame, but I am afraid that I do not know much more.  The old ones liked to tell us these legends when we were children, but that was a long time ago."

"I only have one more question, Nikolai.  Do you personally think that Nosferatu are evil?"

"Is the lion evil for hunting the gazelle?  Is the fox evil for eating the chicken?  Are you evil for killing and eating completely defenseless plant life?" he asked in reply.

"They aren't human beings," she retorted.

"Forgive my bluntness, but that is an elitist argument.  Life is life.  We all kill to eat.  Nowadays many people depend on others to do their killing for them, but the fact remains that something must die in order for something else to live.  It is a fact of nature.  If it is evil, take it up with the Creator," he replied, smiling.

"The Creator commanded, 'Thou shalt not kill'," she responded.

"Actually, the Creator commanded, 'Thou shalt not murder'," he countered.  "It is not murder to compassionately and respectfully dispatch that which you will consume."

An image of the bodies laid out respectfully exploded into Sara's consciousness.

"But this is just my philosophical take on an unproven legend," he said dismissively.

"A legend that exists in almost every culture in the world, regardless of how remote it is," she added.

"Yes, that is a strange coincidence," he agreed, smiling.  "May I ask you a question?"

"Of course," she replied.  "Though I reserve the right to not answer!" she laughed.

"As a member of the Crime Lab, does that mean that you go to crime scenes?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered.

"That must be difficult for you, for anybody," he said, sympathetically.

"Almost always," she agreed.

"You are a beautiful and intelligent woman.  How did you become involved in such a gruesome profession?"

"Thank you," she smiled.  "A teacher of mine got me interested.  He was very dedicated to using science to make society a better, safer place.  I guess I just caught his enthusiasm," she said.  "It's also one of the few professions for a general scientist, so I get to learn more and do more than I would in a specific field of science."

"A Svengali captured your heart and mind, then," he teased.

"So to speak," she laughed.

Before he had fully breeched the entry, Grissom had pulled off his sunglasses and was visually sweeping the room for her.  Though she was facing the other way, his eyes were drawn to her almost instantly, leaned over in rapt conversation with someone Grissom assumed to be one of the employees.

He was relieved that she was all right, but he still was fighting the effects of his anxiety, which he now found to be compounded by more than a hint of jealousy.  The man leaned back and laughed, without his almost-black eyes leaving her eyes. 

Grissom saw that he was about Sara's age or just a little older, and handsome by any standards.  His coloring reminded Grissom of Nick, but his body language was distinctly European.  Whoever he was, Sara seemed utterly entranced by him.

Sara felt him enter the room and turned to look for him, piquing Nikolai's curiosity. He wondered what connection these two had, why she could feel the man's presence.  Nikolai looked intently at Grissom's face, reading his emotions instantly. 

"Is that your husband?" Nikolai asked innocently.  "I do hope he is not the jealous type who gets angry at any man who speaks with you.  He looks upset."

"My husband?  Hardly!" she scoffed.  "He's my boss," she clarified.  "And he's often upset with me," she confided.

"You have known each other for a very long time, then," he pressed.  Her Svengali, no doubt.

"We've been acquainted many years.  I'm not sure you'd say we know each other very well though."  Sara wasn't sure why she was telling this to Nikolai.  She suspected that he may had slain and exsanguinated three women, yet she also felt he was charming and empathetic.  She never once felt that she was in danger.

Sara turned back towards Grissom, who was approaching with a scowl on his face that she knew was reserved for her.  "Did you get the warrant?" she asked, to preempt him.

"No.  Brass is working on it," he answered tensely, his eyes flicking back and forth between the pair.

"We may not need it after all," she retorted, turning to smile at Nikolai.  He returned the smile, then introduced himself to Grissom, who was uncharacteristically brusque. 

"Will you excuse us, Mr. Comenescu?" he bade tersely, taking Sara by the upper arm to guide her up from the chair and to an unoccupied corner of the room.

"What the hell are you doing?" he asked in a low, but heated, voice.

"I'm interviewing the employees," she answered simply.

"Did it ever occur to you that one of them might be the killer?" he asked.

"As a matter of fact, I suspect Mr. Comenescu is Nosferatu," she rejoined.

"And you were just sitting there, having a nice, intimate conversation with a serial killer?" he asked, incredulously.

"I wasn't in any danger.  It's not like he's going to rip open my throat right here in front of everyone," she said, sweeping her arm in an arc.

"Do I have to confine you to the lab?  Is that what it's going to take to keep you alive?  If so, I'll do it, by God."

"I'm only at the lab ten or twelve hours a day, Grissom.  If Nosferatu wants to kill me, he would have plenty of opportunity when I'm not confined to the lab.  But my safety isn't all that's at stake here.  I'm trying to catch a killer before he kills anyone else.  I can't do that locked away in a dungeon somewhere," she explained impatiently.

"But you don't have to do it alone," Grissom argued.

"I'm alone half the day, anyway.  What difference does it make?" she challenged him.

"You don't have to be alone half the day," he blurted out, feeling like he was losing what little control he may have had over the situation.

"You going to hire a babysitter?" she laughed.

"I would if I thought I could find anyone else crazy enough to take the job," he retorted sarcastically.

"Are you volunteering for the job?" she asked.

"I'd hardly call is 'volunteering'," he shot back.  "Do you have anything that ties this guy to Nosferatu?" he asked, trying to judge how long of a commitment this was likely to be.

"Not a thing," she answered deftly.

"Then what makes you think it's him?" Grissom asked probingly.

"I just do," she said, turning to leave, Grissom trailing in her wake.

"We'll take my car and I'll have yours brought back in later," he said as he caught up to her, trying to regain some measure of authority.

"Whatever makes you happy, Grissom," she conceded, smiling inwardly.

Any hesitancy Grissom may have felt about his own behavior disappeared when Nikolai called out, "See you later, Sara."

Sara turned and smiled broadly – the smile that used to be reserved for him alone.  "See you later, Nikolai."  She waved coquettishly.

Grissom held her at the elbow and practically dragged her from the building.  "For God's sake, Sara!  Don't tease him!" he hissed, practically hurling her into the SUV.

"Grissom, I can't believe how you're behaving!" Sara fairly shouted at him once they were safely in the vehicle.

"You can't believe how I'm behaving?  How I'm behaving?  You're in there flirting with a possible serial murderer, and you can't believe how I'm behaving?" he bellowed.

"Why are you so pissed?  Because I was talking to a possible murderer without a chaperone?  Or because I was flirting with him?" she challenged him.

"Both," he snapped.

"Like you've never flirted with a suspect," she shot back.  "At least I didn't sleep with him," she added.

Grissom stared at her, dumbstruck, his mind emptied by panic.  He had hoped against hope that she hadn't heard about his rendezvous at Lady Heather's Domain, but he realized that he should have known better. 

"You don't have to say anything, Grissom.  That look says it all," she said bitterly, turning towards the door.  After a moment of tense silence, feeling his eyes still boring into her, she decided that she couldn't stand it any longer and bolted out of the door. 

The difference between how she had felt talking with Nikolai and how she now felt with Grissom was as day and night.  She couldn't explain it, but at that moment she knew she'd rather be alone with Nikolai than alone with Grissom.

Grissom was too stunned to move at first, but regained his composure enough to fly out of the SUV to chase her.  He caught up with her and grabbed her arm to stop her, just as Nikolai was leaving the blood bank.  Hurrying up to the pair, he interjected himself between the two and asked, "Is everything all right, Sara?"  He turned to look menacingly at Grissom, his bottomless black eyes sending cold shivers down Grissom's spine.

"It's okay, Nikolai," she assured him, reaching out to lay her hand warmly on his bare forearm.  Seeing that, Grissom possessively took her by the other arm to lead her back to the truck. 

As she and Nikolai separated, she turned to smile and say goodbye again, allowing her hand to glide down his arm to his hand, dragging her nails lightly across his skin, sensuously.

"Au revoir, Sara," he called out smoothly.

"I'll call you," she returned.

This time, when Grissom opened the Tahoe's door, she hopped in without resistance.  Grissom got in the driver's side and sighed heavily as he started the truck, feeling the same sense of impending doom that he had felt more than a year ago, when Hank would ask about Sara, before they actually started dating.  He was losing ground with her quickly again, and didn't have any better idea this time on how to stop it.

"Grissom, quick, grab a swab," she commanded excitedly.

"What?" he asked, confused.

"Grab a swab.  I may have been able to get some of his epithelials under my nails."

"That was all a ploy?" Grissom asked, reaching back to drag the field kit up closer to dig out a swab.

"Duh!  Why else would I flirt with a suspect?" she asked.  "That would be unethical, not to mention un-fucking-believably stupid."  Sara hurled her statements out as an accusation, intended to hurt Grissom. 

He held her hand still and swabbed under each fingernail, then grabbed another to swab her palm, unlikely to yield any results, but possible.  When he was done, he let their hands sink to the seat, but didn't let go.  He looked down, unable to meet her eyes.

"She wasn't a suspect at the time," he began.

"I really don't need to hear this," she spat out, jerking her hand away abruptly.

"Maybe I need to say it," he countered.

"Go tell someone who gives a damn," she said, twisting towards the door.

"If you don't give a damn, why are you so angry?" he asked.

"Because it was just wrong, Grissom," she snorted derisively.

"Yes, it was," he agreed.

Sara started chuckling quietly, gradually cascading into full-body laughter.

"What's so funny?" Grissom asked in consternation.

Sara gasped for air, trying to compose herself enough to answer.  "I can't even get you to go out to dinner with me after three years, and a suspect in two different murder investigations can bat her eyes at you a couple of times and you sleep with her.  What crime do I have to commit to get just a dinner date?" she asked, bursting into laughter again.  "Would a minor misdemeanor do?"

"I don't see where that's very funny," Grissom retorted, shame-faced.

"Well, Grissom, sometimes you have to laugh, just to keep from crying," she answered, her laughter dying down, as she caught her breath.

"You were hardly unattached at the time," Grissom said, defending himself.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Like that mattered.  It's not like I was engaged or married.  And at least he wasn't a suspect in any crime that I know of, he wasn't a pervert, and it's irrelevant anyway.  My availability or lack thereof has no bearing on the ethicality of your choices.  I will not allow you to make me the bad guy in all this," she shot back vehemently, her mirth completely dissipated.

"I've already agreed it was wrong.  There's not much I can do about it now," he said, sighing loudly.  "I don't see any point in discussing it further."

"Hey, you brought it up, not me," Sara retorted.  "But I certainly don't want any more lectures from you on impulse control."

The ride back to the lab was unusual.  Normally, they both were either relaxed with each other or both incredibly tense with each other.  This time the dynamic was lop-sided, with Grissom as rigid as Sara had ever seen him.  She, on the other hand, was feeling a bit more emotionally at ease now that she had finally gotten some things off her chest. 

She wondered why she always dreaded confrontation and meaningful communication – it almost always made her feel better.  But nothing ever seemed to make Grissom feel better, as far as she could tell.

She hadn't really put it all together before, even though she would see glimpses of it.  She now saw it all so clearly, sitting in the SUV with him.  He told her not to be emotional over cases, then tells her it's somehow different if he does it.  He tells her to get a life when he doesn't have one.  He tells her she works too much, but when has she ever gone in when he wasn't there? 

He gets mad if she volunteers to entice the Strip Strangler, with half the FBI watching her every second, but he confronts the killer alone and unarmed, and gets injured in the process.  He's shocked to find out she had a few harmless dates with Hank, but he's been hot after no fewer than half a dozen women since she arrived in Vegas. 

He's mad that she's baiting a killer by calculated flirting, but he slept with a suspect – though Sara admits that she did turn out to be innocent, but he didn't know that at the time.

"Hypocrite," she mumbled, more to herself than to him.

"What?" he asked, sure that he misheard her.

"Nothing," she said, waving him off.

* * * * *

"Sara, if I tell you something you really, really would like, would you go out with me?" Greg asked sweetly.

"There's always that outside chance, Greg.  It's just that I can think of so few things that you could possibly tell me that would make me lose all rational thought like that," she answered, her smile equally saccharine.

"Greg, just tell us what the results are!" Grissom barked, tiring of Greg's incessant flirting with Sara.  He had enough of that for one day, and he was sure that the headache he was nurturing would quite possibly kill him.

"Match," he replied quickly, almost physically shrinking from what seemed to be an already irate, possibly murderous Grissom.

"I knew it!" Sara shouted, snatching the report from Greg's hand and bursting out of the lab.

Grissom caught up with her in the layout room, busy on the computer.  "What are you looking for now?" he asked, feeling like she must have felt a hundred times before:  about a half a step behind and not getting any help in catching up.

"I'm researching Nosferatu," she answered simply, as though any fool would have instinctively known the answer.

"I thought there wasn't anything on him in the databases," Grissom recalled.

"Not the serial killer Nosferatu, but Nosferatu as a species," she explained impatiently.

"Sara, there's no such thing as the vampires," Grissom said, surprised that she would believe there was.

"We may believe that there's no such thing, but Nikolai believes in them.  He believes he is one.  To get ahead of the killer, you have to know the killer's motivations, right?.  If he thinks he's a vampire, then I have to learn all I can about them."

She typed in various key words on the Google search page.  43,600 hits on 'vampirism.'  3,830,000 hits on 'vampire.'  177,000 hits on 'Nosferatu.'  567,000 hits on 'Undead.'  Putting them all in together on one search and excluding words like movie, theater, play, game, and of course Buffy, she ended up with 362,000 hits.

"My God, I had no idea there would be that much out there on vampires," Grissom marveled.

"The vampire legend exists in most cultures around the world, in one form or another," she said pedantically, the student becoming the teacher.  "Even today, there's an entire subculture of gothic types who think they're vampires, or at least wish they were."

Grissom stood and watched as she deftly clicked onto one site after the other, scanning each briefly, and then either backing out or clicking the print icon.  He was always amazed at her powers of concentration and determination.  He knew that she would sit here for hours, maybe days, until she had everything she wanted.  It sometimes frustrated him, but he had to admit that he admired her for it.

Feeling a little useless and ill-at-ease, Grissom pulled up a chair and watched for a moment, his mind still reeling from the events of the day, his headache apparently settling in for the duration.

"Sara, when we were driving back, did you say what I think you said?" he asked gingerly, kneading his temples.

"Depends on what you think I said," she fired back, not missing a keystroke.

"I think you called me a hypocrite," he posited.

"Then, yeah, I said what you think I said," she answered evenly, her eyes never leaving the computer screen.

"May I ask what you base that evaluation on?" he asked stiffly.

"The evidence," she retorted.

"What evidence?" he pressed.

"Think about it.  Maybe you'll figure it out.  I'm kind of busy right now.  Can we have this personal discussion some other time?" she asked testily.

"Okay," he answered, getting up from the chair.  He could tell he wasn't wanted there, and he wasn't needed there.  He had never felt that way with Sara before, even when he was avoiding her.  But he knew he had made her feel that way many times, and he was getting a taste of her perspective.  He didn't like it one bit.

"Are you going to go home anytime today?  You've been working almost 16 hours." 

"I doubt it," she answered, succinctly.

"You can use the couch in my office for a nap, if you get tired," he offered gamely.

"Okay," she acknowledged.

"Will you let me know if you're going to leave the lab?" he inquired cautiously.

"You'll be the first person I'll tell," she answered.

"Is that a 'yes'?" he asked, aware that she might not tell anyone, so being the first of none was no distinction.

"Yes, yes, yes!  All right?" she snapped at him, irritated at his distracting chatter and overbearing protectiveness.

"That's getting to be about enough, Sara," Grissom warned.  "Whether you like me or not, whether you're angry with me or not, I am still your supervisor.  I expect you to respect my authority, even if you don't respect me.  Am I clear?"

"Yes, sir, Dr. Grissom," she answered evenly, careful her intonation was neither overly sarcastic or obviously deferential, though the use of his title stung him.

He left, his frustration with her mounting, and his headache pounding.  He had also been at the lab for 16 hours, and he was exhausted.  If Sara didn't want to use the couch, he wasn't going to let it go to waste. 

After stretching out on it, he sat up briefly, calling the receptionist at the front desk.  "Page me immediately if CSI Sidle leaves the lab."  Now he could allow himself to get some rest.

* * * * *

He had been sleeping for about two hours when an insistent knock roused him.  He stumbled towards the door, rubbing his eyes as he reached to open it.

"Dr. Grissom, you told me to let you know if I leave the lab.  I'm leaving the lab," Sara stated, then turned on her heel to leave.

Grissom was still trying to clear away the mental cobwebs, but he finally processed what she said.  "Where are you going?" he asked.

"I'm clocking out of work.  What I do and where I go after that are nobody's business, not even yours," she answered.  "I'll be back at the lab by start of shift at 11:00 tonight."

She took his silence to indicate assent and she disappeared from his door like a night mist in the first rays of dawn.

Sara slammed her hand into the glass doors that led to the outside world, stepping out into the fading light of early evening.  She stopped and took a deep breath, reveling in being free from the oppressive atmosphere that had threatened to suffocate her.

She was on her own time now, and she could damn well do what she pleased.  Gil Grissom can require her to allow him to supervise her work life, but he didn't supervise any of the rest of it. 

She had given him ample opportunity over these past few years to be part of her non-work life, and he consistently rebuffed her.  As far as she was concerned, he had no rights whatsoever after she logged out.

"Hello, Sara," the dulcet voice spoke from behind her.

She turned to see who was greeting her, and saw Nikolai sitting on a bench lined up against the building.  He immediately rose and bowed graciously.

"Nikolai!  How nice to see you again," she said.  "What brings you here?" she asked.

"I came to see if you would do me the honor of having some coffee or a drink with me," he replied, his voice confident and smooth as glass.

"I only have a few hours until I have to be back to work, and I haven't slept in two days," she explained.  "Coffee would keep me up and a drink would put be to sleep.  Could I beg off until tomorrow?" she asked.

"Certainly.  Tomorrow would be lovely," he replied.  "May I walk you to your car?"

"Of course," she said, smiling and taking the crook of his arm as he led her down the walkway towards the parking lot.

"So, you normally work nights?" Nikolai asked.

"Yes."

"Why are you just now leaving, if I may be so bold as to ask?"

"I'm working on a difficult case.  Once you get started, it's hard to pull away," she answered.

"Ah," he intoned.  "You are very dedicated.  A strong, independent woman, it would seem."

"Some would say a headstrong and stubborn woman!" she laughed.

"Unappreciative swine!" he snorted in jest.

"This is my car," she said, putting her key in the lock.

"Allow me," he said, putting his hand over hers, turning the key and opening the door.  He took her hand and lowered her into the seat, then handed her the keys.  "Until tomorrow then.  What time do you get off work?"

"Seven in the morning," she answered, grimacing.  "That is, if nothing big happens tonight."

"I will meet you in your parking lot at seven, then, for morning coffee," he said, taking up her hand and kissing the back. 

He stepped back and nodded his goodbyes as she started the car and drove away. 

As she left the lot, her cell phone rang, and she fumbled to open it while driving.  "Sidle," she said with a tinge of exasperation.

"More DNA samples?" Grissom queried, without so much as a hello.

"Spying on me now?" she asked, annoyed.

"You were standing in the middle of the parking lot for all of Las Vegas to see," he answered.

"Did you call for a reason?" she asked testily.

"Yes.  I had a reason.  I would think the reason is obvious, but evidently I'm wrong."

"Grissom, I'm tired and I just want to go home and go to bed for a couple of hours, and as you no doubt saw, I'm by myself.  I don't have the mental energy for your word games.  If you have something to say, say it plainly," she said, trying in vain to control her frustration with him.

"Okay.  I will.  I don't want you to get yourself killed.  Is that plain enough?"

"Yes, I think even I can understand that.  Don't get killed.  Got it.  Is that all?" she asked.

"Not really, but the rest is probably moot.  Have a good rest," he said, hanging up.

She snapped the phone shut and cursed, spitting out a diatribe to the Vegas traffic.  "He doesn't want me, but doesn't want anyone else to want me.  He won't take me out, but doesn't want me to go out with anyone else.  What the hell does he want from me?"

* * * * *

Grissom was always amazed that Sara was able to function on as little food and sleep as she did.  She didn't look any different from any other day.  He had a two-hour nap the previous afternoon, then slept fitfully for another three hours that evening.  Five poor hours of sleep had done nothing for his outlook.

"Sara, may I see you a moment?" he asked as she sat with the others in the break room, waiting for him to appear with assignments.

"Right now?" she asked, looking around.

"Yes, please," he said, turning back towards his office.

When she followed him through the door, he closed it and asked her to be seated.  She sat across from him, prepared for a battle.

"You've been complaining that we never work together anymore.  We were teamed on this case, and everything was going well.  Now you are going off on your own with the case, and you're consistently angry with me it seems.  Would you mind telling me what's really wrong?"

"Let me ask you this.  Do you feel respected?" she posed to him.

"No, I don't," he answered.

"Walk a mile in my shoes," she retorted.

"Is this all some sort of payback?  That hardly seems your style."

"No, I certainly didn't plan it that way.  Would it make you feel better if I sent you a plant?" she asked facetiously.

"Sara, can we jump to the present for a moment?  Why are you mad at me now?"

"Because you're smothering me.  You won't let me out of your sight while I'm here.  You even spied on me!  You threatened to baby-sit me.  I'm a grown woman and a law enforcement official.  You're treating me like a child.  It's disrespectful.  Again."  Her anger only allowed short, staccato bursts of speech in between gulps of air.

"Put that way, I can see why you would think that.  Could there be another reason for my actions?" he asked.

"You tell me," she challenged.

"Perhaps I just don't want you to get hurt.  I've told you that all along.  I don't understand why you can't see that."

"I don't see you treating Catherine like a child," she countered.  "And I can take care of myself."

"Is it so awful for someone else to want to take care of you?" he asked softly.

"So you want to protect me?" she asked incredulously.  "Every day that I come in here, I die a little more.  Protect me from that!"

"It can be a depressing job," he agreed.

"It's not the job, Grissom.  It's you."

"Oh," he said, with a surprised huff.

"The mere fact that I had to tell you that is a large part of why I'm angry." 

"I don't know what to do about that," he admitted, not realizing how similar his statement was to his earlier rebuff of her dinner invitation.

"I do," she said, abruptly standing up to leave.  Her answer made Grissom realize what he had said.

He searched her defiant face and knew that this "I do" was worlds away from the last time he heard her say it.  This time, it had nothing to do with caring about him.

"I take it he doesn't make you feel that way," Grissom sighed.

"He, who?" she challenged him.

"Nosferatu."

"If you are referring to Nikolai, then, no, he doesn't make me feel that way.  He's nice to me.  He respects me.  He seems to believe I'm attractive and special."

"He's right.  But he's also a serial killer."

"He's innocent until proven guilty," she expelled, taking another tentative step towards the door.

"Be careful, Sara," Grissom almost pleaded.  "This isn't a game.  If you want to punish me, I understand.  But not with him.  He's dangerous."

"You're both dangerous," she said, not facing him.  "Just in different ways," she added, leaving a dumbstruck Grissom to ponder what she meant.

* * * * *

"Dr. Robbins, has David washed the bodies of the three Nosferatu victims yet?  I know it's been weeks since the first one," Sara asked as she stood just inside the door to the morgue.

"No," he said, lifting the brain out of a cadaver and setting it in a metal pan to weigh it.

"Really?  Sweet!" Sara said excitedly.

"Normally we would, in preparation to release the bodies, but these cases are so unusual that I've opted not to release the bodies yet."

"Cool.  Could you or David do me a huge favor?" she asked excitedly.

"Well, it's not often I get to do a favor for a pretty woman," Robbins joked.

"Check their faces, necks, shoulders, and any other exposed upper body areas for amylase."

"Saliva?" Robbins asked.  "We already swabbed around the wounds and sent that to Greg for amylase testing and DNA."

"I know," Sara said, then pulled her lower lip between her teeth uncertainly.

"What are you looking for?" Robbins asked, turning to face her.

"Kisses," she said, feeling a bit ridiculous.

"Kisses," Robbins repeated, sounding a bit confused.

"Yeah.  I want to know if the murderer kissed, licked, or nipped them.  You know, romantic stuff."

"They weren't sexually assaulted," Robbins said flatly, returning to the brain.  He set it on a large cutting board and began slicing it in half-inch-thick slices, looking for irregularities.

"I know.  But that doesn't mean he didn't kiss them," she said, feeling a little foolish.  "I'll do the tests myself, if you want," she offered.

"No, that's okay.  I'll have David do it," Robbins said, shaking his head and chuckling.  "Kisses," he repeated, chuckling. 

"Thanks, Doc," Sara said gratefully.  "Tell David I need to know pretty quick."

Robbins nodded wordlessly, cutting a few small squares of the brain and plopping them into separate test tubes filled with stains.

* * * * *

"How was work?" Nikolai asked, meeting Sara at the door at exactly seven in the morning.

She rocked her hand back and forth, in a "so-so" gesture.

"Trouble with your important case?" he asked, offering her his arm.

"No.  Trouble with the boss," she said, shaking her head.

"Where do you want to go?" Nikolai asked, opening the door to his car and helping her into the passenger seat.

"Anywhere but here," she exhaled.

Nikolai looked appraisingly at Sara, wondering if she were really unable to see what the real problem was between her and her boss.  He decided that if the fool didn't want her, he wouldn't make the same mistake.

Sara was looking out her window, so she didn't see Grissom coming out of the lab on the other side of the car.  Grissom looked up to find himself staring directly into Nikolai's onyx eyes.  The younger man smiled, perhaps a little victoriously, as he pulled the car out of the lot. 

Within seconds Sara's cell phone rang.  Looking down at the screen, she sighed heavily and turned the phone off.

"You do not wish to take your call?" Nikolai asked.

"It's just my boss, and I'm off work.  I can talk to him later," she said, leaning her head back on the seat.

"Perhaps it is important.  Maybe about your difficult case," Nikolai offered.

"No.  He's just pestering me," she said, huffing aloud.

"What does 'pestering' mean?" Nikolai asked unembarrassed.  Though his English was formal, Sara had otherwise forgotten it wasn't his native language.

"Oh, sorry," she smiled.  "It means 'bothering', but carries the nuance of it being many small annoying things over a period of time."

"Hmmm.  That could mean he either dislikes you or likes you.  Which do you think it is?" Nikolai asked, turning to smile warmly at Sara.

"He takes turns.  Sometimes he dislikes me and other times he likes me," she answered honestly.

"Maybe that is how he acts, but I do not think that is how he feels," Nikolai said evenly.

"Hey," Sara said with a grin, turning in her seat to face him.  "I don't want to spend our time together talking about my boss and our problems with each other."

"Why not?  One discusses one's problems with friends.  I would like to be your friend ... if nothing else," he added.

"I'd prefer my friends to be diversions from work and from him," she answered calmly, amazed at how easily he seemed to get her to open up to him.

"You love your work, no?" Nikolai asked, pulling into the parking lot at Bellagio's.

"Yes, I do.  That's the problem sometimes.  I get so wrapped up in it that it overwhelms me.  I need a little distance, to get perspective."

"You want a diversion from work because you love it too much, no?"

"Yes, I guess you could say that," Sara laughed.

"Why do you want a diversion from Dr. Grissom?" he asked, effectively harpooning her with the symmetry of her earlier statement.  "Is it also because you love him too much?"

Sara blanched at the question, quickening her pace towards the dining room of the hotel. 

"Have you ever eaten breakfast here?" Sara asked, changing the subject abruptly.

"I do not eat breakfast," he said smoothly.  "But they also have wonderful coffee, and I will be happy to have coffee while you eat."

"Then I'll just have coffee, too.  I'm not very hungry at the moment," she said, taking the chair offered to her by the waiter.

"Oh, but I insist," Nikolai said, turning serious.  "I do hope I have not offended you."

"No, you haven't offended me," she said, smiling at him.  "You asked a question I've asked myself many times."

"His anger means he is weakening.  He cannot resist the pull toward you much longer," Nikolai confided, leaning towards her dramatically, as though caught in her gravitational pull.

Sara laughed dismissively, waving her hand back and forth as though she were erasing his words.  "You've only met him once.  He's more complex than that."

"I have a gift of discerning character," Nikolai explained.  "I can see into the heart and soul of a person, if I so wish."

"That would be a handy gift to have in my job," Sara nodded, gratefully taking the cup of coffee poured by the waiter.  She ordered a fruit plate and turned back to Nikolai.

"It serves me well," Nikolai agreed.

"Tell me about yourself.  I know you come from Romania and have traveled extensively.  Where were you before you came here?"

"I was in Reno for a few months."

"What do you do for a living?" she asked, trying to make it sound less like an interrogation and more like a date. 

"I work at the blood bank, as you know," he answered.

"That's a volunteer position," she countered.

"I have an inheritance," he answered, seeming a bit embarrassed.

"Why Vegas?  Why would an educated, cultured person like you come here?" she asked.

"I have never been here," he answered, as though that were reason enough to go anywhere.

"How long will you be staying?" she asked, smiling briefly at the waiter as he set a plate of sliced fruits and melons in front of her with a flourish.

"A few months perhaps.  Perhaps less," he said shrugging.

"Do you get bored with a place that quickly?"

"I ... how do you say it? ... wear out my welcome," he said, shrugging.

"Really?  How could you possibly wear out your welcome?  You seem like a charming man.  You do volunteer work.  You've never been arrested."

Nikolai raised an eyebrow at her last statement, asking a silent question.

"We checked everyone at the blood bank," Sara answered.

"I enjoy anonymity.  Once you have lived anywhere for very long, people get to know you.  Perhaps you even develop ties to them.  I like my freedom to come and go as I please."

"Sounds like you and my boss have something in common after all," Sara murmured, spearing another piece of fruit.

"Then we have two things in common," Nikolai smiled.  "We cherish our freedom, but we are inexorably drawn to you."

* * * * *

Sara set her purse down on her breakfast counter and looked over at the answering machine, half-expecting the usual zero on the digital screen.  Instead she saw 12, walking over to press the play button, suspecting who might have called that many times.

The first few messages were angry, and she tried to ignore their tone as she undressed, tossing her clothes across the room at the hamper.

But the tenor of the messages began to change, to become more pleading.  The last message from Grissom sounded almost defeated:  "Sara, you don't have to talk to me.  Just call me and hang up if you want to.  Just let me know you're okay.  That's all I'm asking.  Please," he added desperately.

She stood by the phone, waiting for the last message to play before calling him back.  But the final recording wasn't Grissom, but Nikolai.  "Thank you for accompanying me to breakfast.  I had a marvelous time talking with you.  I hope to see you again soon.  Sleep well."  The message readout went back to zero.

She tiredly pressed the button preset with Grissom's cell phone number.  He answered on the first ring, as though he already had it in hand.

"Sara?" he asked anxiously.

"I would hope so, considering this is my home phone," she answered dryly.

"I'm sorry for leaving all those messages," Grissom said, feeling embarrassed and exposed.  "You weren't answering your cell phone."

"It's okay.  I just got home," she said, pulling the phone over to the bed and flopping down on her back.

"I was worried," Grissom said nervously.

"You didn't need to be," Sara answered calmly.

"Well, I was," he rejoined, a bit of the anger returning to his voice.

"If you're gonna get mad at me again, I'm hanging up.  I'm not at work, and I don't have to listen to it," she warned.

"I should let you go rest anyway," Grissom said, suddenly at a loss for words.

"I'm not tired.  I only went out for breakfast;  I didn't run a marathon," she said, watching the ceiling fan make its endless rounds.

"I don't have anything else to say that won't make you mad," Grissom said, exhaling deeply.  She could imagine him, leaned back in a chair, eyes closed, rubbing his forehead or his temple with his free hand.

"You could say something nice," Sara coached, the smile evident in her voice.

"Saying I worry about you isn't nice?" Grissom asked, sounding perplexed.

"I guess in your world, it is," Sara conceded.  "But I was actually referring to something nice about me."

"Oh."  Several seconds of dead silence separated them.

"Hey, don't strain yourself there.  If it's that hard to come up with something nice to say about me, forget it," she said, testily.  She stood up and walked the phone back over to its place on the desk intending to end the call almost immediately.

"It's not hard to come up with nice things about you, Sara.  It's just hard to say them," Grissom said.

"Hard for you to say them," she clarified.

"Yes, hard for me to say them," he conceded.

"Why's it so hard for you?  It doesn't seem to be that hard for other people."

"I'm not like other people," Grissom snapped, feeling fresh jealously infuse his veins, knowing she was talking about Nikolai.

"I know," she said sympathetically, choosing not to repay his anger in kind.

"Sara, he might be taking advantage of you, trying to get close to the investigation," Grissom suggested.

"Oh, you mean he might be using me the same way I'm using him?" she retorted.  "You could be right, but I don't think so.  I think he really likes me, as hard as that is to believe."

"It's not hard to believe," Grissom said tiredly.  "But, even if he really does like you, you're just going to get hurt.  He'll either leave, or we'll catch him."

"I'm used to getting hurt," Sara mumbled, picking up the phone to move back to her bed. 

Sara could picture him at the other end of the phone line, his face showing his befuddlement, not knowing how to respond.

"You're going to do this, no matter what I say, aren't you?" Grissom exhaled in defeat.

"No, there's something you could say to stop me," Sara said.

"I could take you off the case," Grissom said cautiously.

"That couldn't stop me from seeing him on my own time," Sara countered.

"But there's something I could say or do that would stop you from seeing him?" Grissom asked hopefully.

"Yes," she answered, not giving him the clues he so desperately wanted.

"What is it?" Grissom finally asked.

"You could make me a better offer," she suggested.

"I can't," he said heavily, realizing that his hopes of diverting her were quickly fading.

"He's actually a lot like you, or at least how you used to be.  I remember when you and I  first met.  We'd have coffee and talk – sometimes for hours," she said, dreamily reminiscing.

"I remember," Grissom said, obviously allowing himself the same memories.

"You sometimes said nice things to me then," she said, sighing as she allowed one particular afternoon to play in her mind.  Nothing extraordinarily romantic had happened that day.  But they sat on the grass in the commons, next to the fountain.  They ate fruit and talked for two hours.  At one point he fell silent, then told her how pretty she was.  She had blushed and looked away. 

"They're still true, all the things I said then."

"But you won't say them now," she goaded.

"I can't now," he answered in frustration.

Thinking about the times she and Grissom had shared before she came to Las Vegas had stirred an ember in her, but his words were like water, extinguishing the flames.

"He can," she said, not trying to hurt Grissom so much as explain herself to him.  "You may think it's vain or silly or whatever.  But after everything that's happened since I've come here, I just need to spend a little time with someone who makes me feel good about myself."

"I would if I could," Grissom forced out, feeling like even that admission could be too much, perhaps adding fuel to the fire that could end up consuming both of them.

"Would you?" Sara asked.  "Well, that's something, I guess."

"But not enough," Grissom said, completing her thought.

"There was a time when it would have been, but not anymore.  I'm sorry, but it's just too late for that."

"So all three of us are going to end up hurt," Grissom murmured.

"It doesn't have to be that way, Grissom," Sara said quietly.

"Sara, that's blackmail.  That's one of the reasons why it's against the rules for me to date subordinates.  It's just too easy for one person to influence the other, using threats or bribes to get what they want."

"This has nothing to do with work.  And it's not blackmail.  It's not a threat.  It's not a bribe.  Here's the deal:  I'm tired of being alone.  I have a person asking me out, and he's been very good to me so far.  You're telling me not to do it, but you're not offering me any reason to turn him down."

"He's the prime suspect in three murders, Sara!" Grissom barked.

"That's work.  Work has nothing to do with my personal life."

"So you could go into the lab or to a crime scene, collect and analyze evidence that could put him on death row, then clock out and spend the day with him, like nothing is happening?" Grissom asked incredulously.

"Yes.  He knows I'm working on the murders.  He never asks about it.  We find other things to talk about."

"Like what?" Grissom asked, without thinking.

"Let's see, this morning we spent several minutes talking about you.  Then I found out that he was in Reno before he came here, and that he's living off an inheritance."

"What do you mean, talking about me?" Grissom asked suspiciously.

"Don't worry, it didn't have to do with the case.  Nikolai just thought that there was something going on between us."

"Between you and me?" Grissom asked, to clarify.

"Yeah, between you and me," Sara answered.  "But don't worry, I set him straight."

"And that took several minutes?" Grissom asked, sure that she was glossing over something she didn't want to talk about.

"Well, he didn't accept my explanation, I guess.  Hey, if you want all the gory details, call Nikolai.  You guys could get together over a beer or something."

"We can't all have a personal relationship with the suspect," Grissom huffed.  "Someone's got to stay objective."

"And you're objective?" Sara asked challengingly.

Before he could answer, Sara could hear first his beeper, then her own. 

"Catherine's beeping me," Grissom said.

"Yeah, me, too," Sara said.  "You call her, then call me back.  I've got to get dressed."

"You're not dressed?" Grissom asked, the thought never having crossed his mind.

"Nope.  The whole time we've been talking, I've been naked as a jaybird, lying in my bed," she laughed.

"Good God, I'm glad I didn't know that," Grissom mumbled. 

"Call Catherine before she sends out the Mounties.  I may be on my way in by the time you get off the phone with her, so call my cell."

Sara put on clean clothes and took a moment to wash her face and brush her teeth, feeling almost as refreshed as she would have from a short nap.  Her cell chirped at her and she snatched it up, answering it with a preemptive, "What have we got?"

"Another one.  Are you sure you want to stay on this case?  Catherine and I can work it, if you'd rather not."

"The case is ours – mine and Catherine's," she answered resolutely, her words becoming breathy as she bounded down the staircase outside her apartment.

"Meet us there.  You know where the Union Pacific Railroad tracks cross West Russell?"

"Yeah, in general."

"Between I-15 and South Decatur."

"Okay, I know where you're talking about now."

"Once you're at the tracks, just look to the north for the rave, Catherine said." 

"Lights everywhere, huh?"

"Evidently.  I'll see you in a few minutes," Grissom said, hanging up the phone.  What had been an excruciating conversation for him, awkward in every way, had suddenly given way to a work topic, making him instantly more at ease. 

He was still concerned about how he would feel when he first saw her at the crime scene – not only because of the discomfort of their conversation, but because he would have the added burden of knowing that she had been lying in her bed nude, the whole time.  He found that thought both disquieting and exhilarating.

* * * * *

Uncharacteristically the last one on the scene, Grissom walked quickly up to the lighted area, taped off with two separate rows of crime scene tape.  There were more policemen there than for the previous victims, for crowd control. 

Everyone had tried to keep the murders quiet, hoping to get a lead on the murderer before the media could alert him.  But now, in addition to the halogen lamps set up by the police, the scene was illuminated by the lights coming from the TV news cameras.

"It's a zoo," Brass said, meeting him at the tape. 

"Is she just like the others?" Grissom asked, moving around the inside periphery of the tape to approach on the same side Sara and Catherine apparently had.

"Yep," Brass answered succinctly.  "Well, not exactly the same," retracting his statement.

"What do you think this means, Sara?" Grissom asked, bending down to examine the latest victim of Nosferatu.

"I don't know ... yet," she said thoughtfully.  Turning to the coroner's assistant, she called him over.

"David, I need you to do the same tests for amylase all over the exposed skin from the chest up.  Okay?"

"Sure," David nodded.

"What amylase tests?" Grissom asked.

"I had David test for amylase on the previous victims' faces, necks, shoulders, chests, anything that was exposed."

"Why?  We already have amylase from the bites," Grissom said, looking at her intently, knowing that she must be playing a hunch.

"I don't want to talk about it here," she said, leaning over to whisper to him.  "Please?"

Grissom met her eyes with his own for a moment, seeing that she wanted to tell him, but not where everyone could hear. 

"Okay.  Tell me when we get back to the lab."

"Thanks, Grissom.  It might not even be important," she said, shrugging.

"It may be.  I need to know why this victim is different.  I think you may know," Grissom said.

"Maybe," Sara agreed.

Catherine walked up to the pair.  Pulling the wallet from a purse that had been found intact with the body, she read the driver's license. 

"Denise Spears.  Sixty-three years old.  Lives just a block away, on West Diablo Drive.  Money still in her wallet.  Credit cards still here."  Catherine handed the wallet to Brass, who copied down the name and address on a notepad, tearing off the sheet to hand to a uniformed cop standing nearby.

Catherine went back to the body, squatting very close to Sara, peering intently at the victim.  She said just loud enough for only Sara to hear, "You want to fill me in on what's going on?  I know I've been out of the loop a week or so on this case, but I've read all the case notes.  This isn't his typical M.O."

"I can't really talk about it right now," Sara murmured.

"Grissom!" Catherine called loudly, waving him over. 

"What is it?" he asked.

"We know what we're going to find here as far as evidence – the same as the last three times.  What do you say we let the CSI Technicians do the collection, and we hightail it back to the lab?  I think it's definitely time for us to all have a talk," she said, looking at Sara, then turning back to Gil.

"I agree," he said, nodding.  Grissom explained to the technicians what he wanted.  As he passed by David, Grissom leaned in and said quietly, "Keep an eye on them, David.  Don't let them mess up your body or my crime scene."

"Yes, sir," David said, smiling knowingly at the supervisor.

* * * * *

"Sara, I think it's time for you to lay all your cards out on the table," Grissom said.  He had herded both women into his office and shut the door, uncharacteristically locking it.

Catherine turned and looked expectantly at Sara, knowing that Sara sometimes withheld information from the case file until she was sure of it, especially if it was from a hunch.

"About what, specifically?" she asked, hoping to not have to delve into her private life as part of the investigation.

"You and Comenescu," Grissom answered.  "Or would you prefer for me to brief Catherine?"

Catherine looked back and forth between the two, their eyes locked together, but not angrily.  "Well, somebody tell me what's going on!" she said loudly.

"You tell her whatever you think she needs to know," Sara said with resignation, easing back in her chair, throwing her face into the shadows of his office.  The small lamp on his desk only cast a small circle of light, and she had managed to slip quietly out of it.

"Sara is in a relationship with Nikolai Comenescu, our main suspect," Grissom began.

"You've got to be shitting me," Catherine sputtered, turning to look to Sara for a denial, unable to see her face.  But since no denial was ever voiced, Catherine shook her head and turned back to Gil, her eyes demanding that he do something, say something to make it stop.

Grissom held up both hands, as if to tell Catherine that there was nothing he could do about it – that he'd already tried.

"You're going out with a serial murderer?" Catherine hissed, trying to keep her voice down, but strident nonetheless.

"I believe he's a suspect until found guilty by a jury of his peers," Sara answered from the shadows.

"I fucking don't believe this.  What's going on in this place?  Damn near every member of this department has dated or slept with a suspect in an active investigation in the last year or two, and it always turns to shit.  You'd think we'd learn by now not to do it.  I really thought you were smarter than that, Sara," Catherine said with frustration, slumping back in her chair.

Grissom had the good sense not to comment.  Catherine and Sara had been the only two in their department who hadn't had some form of romantic or sexual relationship with a suspect, and now Sara had fallen into the ranks of the dishonored.

It seemed ironic that the only person who had managed to not fall prey to that temptation was the CSI who had previously been a stripper. 

"Okay, moving on," Catherine said, shaking her head.  "Is there more?" she asked pointedly.

"What's going on with the amylase tests you had David do?" Grissom asked.

Sara's disconnected voice came out of the shadows, explaining that she had David use strips of treated paper pressed against the victim's skin to test for amylase from saliva.  She then processed the paper and mapped out the amylase patterns on pictures of the victims. 

"And this tells us what?" Catherine asked, unable to see Sara, so turning to Gil.

"I would assume that he kissed them," Grissom said gently, realizing that it could be a sensitive subject for Sara.  "I had thought that there had to be a sexual component to the murders, and apparently there was, though none of the victims was sexually assaulted."

"As long as we're all laying our cards on the table, why don't you tell Catherine how you came to that conclusion?" Sara suggested, leaning forward into the light.  Her face was set into a stony visage of barely controlled anger.

Grissom glared at her for several seconds, wondering why she was bringing this up.  It wasn't germane to the investigation.  But, then again, neither was her relationship with Comenescu, at least on the surface.

"Would you prefer me to brief Catherine?" Sara asked, imitating him in tone and words.

Grissom was mute, unsure how far either one of them was willing to take this game. 

"Well, you see," Sara began in all seriousness, "Grissom and I were trying to determine the killer's approach – how he managed to attack and subdue the victims so quickly, without any major struggle. 

"So I played the part of the victim, and Grissom played Nosferatu," Sara said, pausing for effect.  Catherine's eyes rolled down to look at a spot on the desk, feeling the tension in the room rise with each word.  While she normally thrived on being in the know, this much exposure from both of them was unsettling. 

"Purely by accident, we discovered that the attacker bent the victim over backwards suddenly, like a dip in dancing, throwing them off balance."

Catherine nodded, visualizing how each step would work in her mind's eye.  She could see the victim flailing to recover her balance, instead of fighting off her attacker.

"The attacker then went in for the kill, which Grissom reenacted quite convincingly I might add.

"Do you want to take it from here?" Sara asked, giving him the option to explain his theory.

Grissom shook his head wearily, watching the end of the pencil as he tapped it incessantly on a legal pad.

"So Grissom surmised that it must have a sexual component, because he found it to be very ... arousing," she finished, gliding back into the shadows.

Catherine swallowed the lump that was forming in her throat.  They had each exposed the other in a very personal way.  True, their revelations about each other were peripherally connected to the case, but she really had no need to know, at least at this point.

"If you'll excuse me, I think the rest of this conversation should be in private," Catherine said hoarsely, letting herself out of Grissom's office.  She leaned back against the wall, next to the door, and closed her eyes.  Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, she decided to go to autopsy, to see whether there were any differences in this murder, other than the age of the victim.

* * * * *

The silence hung in the room like a thick woolen blanket, turning the air hot and thin. 

"Don't ever tell anyone my personal business again, Grissom," Sara spat out as she stood, glaring at him defiantly.

"You repaid me," he exhaled, still watching the perpetual motion of his tapping pencil.

The seconds were as hours as she stood and stared, and he sat avoiding her eyes.

"You had me trumped, though," she said in sudden realization, "but you never played your last card."

Grissom looked up at her, finally setting the pencil down.  "She doesn't need to know that," he said, shrugging.

"She didn't need to know any of it," Sara pressed, leaning on his desk.  "Why didn't you bust me?  Why didn't you tell her I had asked you out?  Why didn't you tell her that I was just as aroused during the reenactment as you were ... maybe more?"

"It didn't have anything to do with the case.  The other did, or at least I thought so.  He's changed his M.O. because of you.  You know as well as I do that they won't find any amylase anywhere but the bite wound on this victim.  She's not young and attractive.  He's showing you that he's being faithful to you."

Sara sunk back down into her chair, propping an elbow on her knee and laying her head in her palm. 

"I know you don't want to hear this, but I do know what you are feeling.  I honestly do," Grissom said.

"He's the one nice thing that's happened to me in so long ..." she whispered.  "And I'm going to betray him," she added guiltily.

"I know," Grissom said sympathetically.  "I felt the same way." 

"How did you do it?" she asked in a thin voice.

"We were having tea when I realized that she had the means and the opportunity, though I couldn't fathom the motive.  I called Brass to get a warrant and he took her in for questioning," he recited mechanically, separating himself from what he had felt at the time.

"You called right in front of her?" Sara asked, taken aback.

"Yes.  I didn't want to go behind her back.  I had to be honest about it," he said.

"Lucky for you she turned out to be innocent.  I don't think that'll happen for me."

"Her being innocent didn't change the fact that she felt I betrayed her.  She didn't accept my apology," he sighed.

"I'm sorry," Sara said, as sincerely as she could, considering the pain the subject caused her, even now.

"I'm sorry for how it happened, but it was for the best.  It would never have worked out," he said, shrugging.

"Why not?" Sara asked.  "From what I've heard, she doesn't exactly seem your type, but if you cared for her, that's all that matters," Sara choked out.

"I didn't care for her.  I liked how she treated me.  There's a difference," he explained.

"I understand that difference," Sara said, nodding.  "Why can't we find decent, law-abiding people who will treat us that way?  What's wrong with us, Grissom?" she pleaded with him.

"God, Sara, I wish I knew how to answer that.  We live on the fringe of society, steeping ourselves in all that's wrong with it.  We rarely see the light of day.  It's like we are the Undead.  Alive, but not living.  Who else but other fringe-dwellers would want us?" he asked.

"You've come closest, with Hank.  His job was a little out of the ordinary as well, but look at what the rest of us have been involved with.  Catherine had Eddie, and we all know what a sterling character he was.  Nick fell for a prostitute, Warrick for a junkie.  We don't mix well with normal people, so I guess that limits our choices."

"That begs the question, why can't we choose someone we work with?  Someone who understands, who's on the same side?"

"It's against the rules," he answered simply.

"Fuck the rules," she spat out, flying up from her chair.  "So it's better for us to hook up with low-lifes or criminals?  Isn't that breaking the rules, too?  Or do the rules specify that we have to be lonely and miserable?"

"The rules exist for a reason," he tried to explain, but knowing that none of the reasons would quell her anger.

"Yeah, what a tragedy it would be to actually care about someone you work with.  I can see why there would be a rule against that."

"It could cloud your judgment.  It could lead to inequities.  It could make an already stressful job more so," he ticked off. 

"And how's that different from how it already is?"

"Not really very different," he exhaled, seeing her point.  "The rules don't forbid you to date other CSIs, Sara.  They only forbid fraternization between management and nonmanagement."

"All I wanted was to go to dinner," she said quietly, shaking her head.

"That's not all you wanted, and you know it.  It's not all I wanted, either," he admitted.

She looked at him dumbstruck.  He always seemed to do this to her – drive her to the edge, then yank her back.

"I can do one thing for you, though," Grissom said.  "I can take you off this case.  You won't have to have him arrested;  I will."

"I'd still have to testify against him.  I gathered the evidence.  We identified him through the DNA I stole from him."

"I'll find another way to identify him," Grissom said hopefully.  "All you'd have to testify to is chain of custody on the evidence from the crime scenes.  That's a technicality, not an accusation.  You don't have to hurt him," Grissom added, more empathetic than she imagined he could be.

"It still doesn't feel right," she breathed out.

"There is no right in this situation, Sara.  This is the least wrong," he nodded.

* * * * *

"Where are we going?" Sara asked Nikolai, once she sat down in his car.  She briefly looked back at the building, feeling a stab of guilt when she saw Grissom standing just inside the door.  He lowered his head sadly and turned, escaping back into the depths of the lab.

She felt herself pulled in two directions.  She was sitting only a few feet from a man who made her feel good about herself again, but she wanted so badly to run to Grissom, to tell him that she would wait forever for him, if only he would let her know that someday he might care for her.

"I would like to go to the zoo, if that is acceptable to you," Nikolai said excitedly.

Sara was drawn back into reality and allowed herself to laugh.  She used to love the zoo as a child, but hadn't been to one in two decades.  "You're the first guy to take me on a date to the zoo!"

"I try to go to the zoo in every city I move to," Nikolai said, his infectious smile and limpid eyes filling her with an unexpected warmth.

"How many zoos have you gone to?" Sara asked.

"Oh, hundreds," he answered gleefully.

"And you lived in each city how long?" she asked, her face contorted in disbelief.

"Normally three to six months," he answered honestly.

"So that would take between 25 and 50 years, even for just a hundred zoos, and probably not every city you've lived in has had a zoo," she said, looking askance at him.

"Yes, I suppose you are correct," he answered evenly.  They drove in silence several more minutes as Sara tried to discern any psychotic or neurotic behavior in him other than his delusion of being a vampire.

"Ah, we are here," he said, holding up his hand when she reached for the door.  "Allow me," he said, bounding out of the car to open her door for her, offering her his hand.

"Nikolai, how old are you?" Sara asked as she wrapped her hand around his arm.

"Is age really that important?" he asked.

"For some people," she snorted, thinking of Grissom.  She was convinced that one of the reasons he avoided her was their age difference, though it never concerned her.

"My country is notoriously poor at record-keeping," he said, shrugging.  "I have no valid birth certificate."

"How did you get a passport?" she asked, as he paid and took the tickets from the bored woman in the glass booth.

"I do not have a passport," he answered, guiding them to start on the trail leading off to the right.

"How'd you get in the country, then?" she asked, confused.

"At the time, I did not need one," he answered.  "Look, Sara!  Look at the colors on that parrot.  He is magnificent!" Nikolai exclaimed, pointing like a child.

"You're being purposefully vague," Sara laughed, tugging at his arm. 

"Stop being an investigator for one afternoon.  Just be Sara," he said breathlessly, turning to grasp both of her hands.

"Allow me to divert you for a few hours from the overwhelming love of your job and Dr. Grissom," he said, smiling warmly at her.

"I don't think I need to be diverted from him anymore," she said heavily, her hand sliding down his arm to rest in his hand.

"Someone should speak with him," Nikolai said absently.  Quickening his pace, he was almost dragging Sara towards the next habitat.

"Look at them, Sara!  Powerful, graceful, and utterly ruthless," he said admiringly, watching the Bengal tigers.  "No one expects them to be any different from how they are."

"Yes, but we can't let them run loose among us," Sara said.  "It's sad that they have to be kept this way, but they have to be contained.  To them, we're not the top of the food chain, we're beneath them."

"They are only doing what comes naturally to them, what God ordained for them to do from the beginning of time," Nikolai said passionately.

"That may be, but we have a right to protect ourselves, too," Sara said sadly.  "It's a struggle.  Survival of the fittest.  They may be stronger and faster, but we're smarter and more ruthless.  They only kill to eat.  We kill for fun."

"I never kill for fun," Nikolai said quietly, leaning over to whisper in her ear. 

Sara swallowed, feeling almost faint.  They had never directly spoken of his crimes, and she'd been able to separate them in her mind from the man who stood next to her.  But his statement had jolted her to the core.

"I never kill at all," Sara answered back weakly.

"We've had this conversation, I think.  When we first met," he said.  "We all kill to eat.  We may pay others to do it for us, but it must be done.  All life is the same, whether it is a human, an animal, a plant, or a bacterium.  It is still alive until someone or something takes that life.  Then the taker recycles the life into its own."

"Energy can neither be created nor destroyed," Sara mumbled mechanically.

"Precisely.  Life is energy.  There is really no such thing as death – just endless permutations of life, each blending with that which consumes it to form one out of the two."

"That sounds almost sexual," Sara noted as they ambled along the path.

"I suppose it does," he nodded.  He looked around, contenting himself that no one was within hearing range.  "When people make love, they share a feeling and their bodies, and a bodily fluid that is not necessary for life – not their lives anyway.  And think about the bond that the act often creates between people, even if only temporarily.  Now imagine that what you are sharing is that which gives you both life.  To be connected by blood is a very powerful, moving experience."

"I don't want to hear any more," Sara said weakly, turning to find a bench to sit. 

"I am terribly sorry, Sara.  I did not mean to upset you," Nikolai said contritely, sitting at the other end of the bench, trying not to crowd her or frighten her.

"I can't believe this," Sara said, shaking her head and smiling, though with no joy.  "You've got to be the nicest guy I've ever met, certainly the nicest guy who's ever asked me out, and you're a murderer," she said, huffing a mirthless laugh.

"I am not a murderer," Nikolai said, trying not to be defensive.  This was the first time in ages that he'd tried to explain himself to anyone, and now he remembered why.  "But I cannot change what I am, what I must do to survive.  But out of deference to you, I am willing to change my usual food source."

"From young women to older women," Sara said in a daze.

"Exactly.  They are already nearing the end of their lives.  It is not the same, much like eating old meat is not like eating fresh meat for humans.  But I can survive."

"I can't be having this conversation," Sara said, jumping up to scurry back down the path.

"Sara!" Nikolai shouted, chasing her down the path, finally catching up to her just outside the gates to the zoo.  "I apologize.  I will speak of this no more to you, on my honor."

"It doesn't matter, Nikolai," she said tiredly.  "Even if we never talk about it, I still have to look into the pale white faces of the women who die every week or two at your hands.  There is no scientific basis to believe that you or anyone else lives on blood.  None.  But even if it were true, they give up the rest of their lives for you to have one more week.  It isn't fair."

"So you think me to be a lunatic?" Nikolai asked, serious, but unangered.

"Yes.  No.  I don't know.  You don't act like one around me, but you seem to act like one around your victims."

"Would a lunatic treat them with such love, honor, and respect?" he asked.

"I don't know.  I'm not sure of anything anymore.  Please drive me back to my car," Sara said sadly.

"May I still call on you?" Nikolai asked.

"I've got to think about all this, Nikolai.  Give me a little time to process it," she said, smiling wanly.  She knew what she felt like answering, but the last thing she wanted to do was antagonize him.

"That is not 'no', so I will be hopeful," he said, smiling as he helped her into the car.

When he pulled up behind her car in the lab parking lot, Sara turned to him.  "Nikolai, I've got to know if you're telling me the truth."

"I am," he said gravely.

"Are you willing to prove it?" Sara asked challengingly.

"How?"

"Would you go into the lab with me and give me a sample of your blood and a DNA sample from your cheek?  If you truly are different from us, I'll be able to tell."

"Always the scientist," he said, smiling at her.

"I can't help it;  it's my nature," she said, returning the smile.

Nikolai parked the car and escorted Sara into the lab.  She secured him a visitor's badge and showed him around. 

"This is very impressive," he said, looking at the glass-walled labs, each housing one or more technicians busily analyzing evidence.

Turning the corner, they almost literally ran into Grissom, who stepped back, eyeing the couple.  "Sara, may I speak to you for a moment?" he asked. 

"Sure.  Nikolai, why don't you wait for me in the break room right over there.  Yes, that one," she directed.

Grissom pulled her back around the corner, barely able to contain himself.  "Sara, what in the hell is he doing here?  Have you lost your mind?"

"No.  He's here to give me a blood and a DNA sample, as a matter of fact," she said tersely.  "What are you doing here at this hour?"

"I had a staff meeting.  He's giving the samples voluntarily?" Grissom asked, befuddled.

"Yes.  He's trying to prove to me that he really is a vampire," she said sadly.

"So you asked for samples.  Be sure to have him sign all the waivers or we won't be able to use them as evidence," Grissom said anxiously.

"I know what I'm doing," Sara retorted, turning back toward the break room.

"Want some coffee?  I warn you, it's not for the faint of heart," she laughed as she walked past Nikolai.

"No, thank you.  Come over here," Nikolai bade, directing her into the corner farthest from the door.

"What is it?" Sara asked, afraid he wanted to back out of giving the samples.

"I could feel it from in here," he whispered.

"Feel what?" Sara asked, confused.

"The connection between the two of you – you and your Svengali.  Why do you fight it so?" he asked, genuinely perplexed.

"It's a long and boring story," she said, turning away.

"Does he not feel it, too?" Nikolai asked, wondering how an intelligent man like Grissom could miss something that basic.

"I don't know," she answered honestly.  "Sometimes I think he does, and other times, I'm sure he doesn't.  But it doesn't make any difference anyway.  We've discussed it, and he doesn't want to pursue a relationship," she said with finality.

"He is a fool," Nikolai almost spat out.  "He is unworthy of you."

If only he were more like you.  Sara wondered what had made Grissom change so much.  He'd always been a loner, always been private.  But he'd shared with her willingly years ago.  Now he was completely closed off from everybody, it seemed. 

"I tried telling him that," Sara teased, "but he just wouldn't listen to me."

"I will tell him," Nikolai said, moving quickly to the door.

"No, Nikolai!  Wait!" Sara called out.  "Don't you dare!  I'd die of embarrassment," she said, pulling him into the Serology lab instead.

"Greggo!  This must be my lucky day!  What are you doing here at this ungodly hour?"

"Had to come in early to cover for the swing shift tech.  He's got the flu or something," Greg said with no small amount of exasperation.  "So I'm working a double tonight. Who's your buddy?" Greg asked, seeing the visitor's pass clamped to Nikolai's collar.

"Nikolai Comenescu, this is Greg Sanders," Sara said, introducing them.  Nikolai stuck out a hand, and Greg gingerly took it, trying not to look like he already knew the name.

"What do you do at this wonderful laboratory, Mr. Sanders?" Nikolai asked, genuinely interested.

"Um, I'm the DNA and Serology technician."

"Hmmm.  You are an expert on blood, then?" Nikolai asked, raising an eyebrow provocatively, but softening it with a hint of a smile.  "I have an interest in blood as well."

"Well, I'm an expert at blood tests.  And DNA tests.  That doesn't mean I know all there is to know about blood and DNA, of course," Greg said, feeling himself start to ramble.

"Will Mr. Sanders be helping us?" Nikolai asked, turning to Sara.

"If you want him to," Sara shrugged.  "He certainly knows more about it than I do.  I know how to run all the tests, but he knows tons more about interpreting the results than I do."

"If he is willing ..." Nikolai said, turning to Greg, who was momentarily suspended in Sara's compliments.

"I'm a little lost here," Greg squeaked out, turning to Sara with a helpless, scared look in his eyes.

"Nikolai is going to give us blood and DNA samples.  We want you to analyze them," Sara said.

"For what?" Greg asked.  "Does Grissom know about this?"

"We'd like you to do a full spectrum of serological tests, from species to enzyme markers to ABO, you name it.  And a DNA analysis.  Both PCR and RFLP," Sara said.

"Would you excuse us?" Greg asked nervously, pulling Sara outside of the lab.

"Does Grissom know about this?  You're talking hundreds, maybe thousands, of dollars worth of tests!" Greg said, darting his eyes constantly back toward Nikolai.

"After we get the samples, he'll leave.  You can check with Grissom before you start the tests, if you don't believe me," Sara answered quickly and quietly.

"I believe you," Greg said, hurt by her implication.  "But I'm not drawing the samples," Greg said, shaking his head.  "I don't want him mad at me, if it hurts."

"Fine, you big baby!  I'll do it," she teased, pulling him back into the lab.

"I talked him into it," Sara said triumphantly.

"Thank you, Mr. Sanders," Nikolai said warmly.

"Call me Greg," he said, cleaning his workspace to begin preparing Comenescu's samples as soon as they were handed to him.

"I'll need you to sign these waivers," Sara said, handing him a clipboard bearing several forms.

"What are these for?" Nikolai asked, flipping through the pages.

"Standard stuff, like you won't sue us if I screw this up and give you an air embolism, causing a fatal heart attack," she said, chuckling.  "Oh, and that one says that it's all right for us to analyze the samples.  Doh!  Like anyone would say it's okay to take samples as long as we don't actually analyze them!  And that one says that you'll hold us harmless if we lose track of them somehow, like if a DNA thief comes in here and steals all of our samples to sell on the DNA Black Market."

"The world has become a strange place," Nikolai commented, signing his name at the bottom of each form. 

"Tell me," Greg said.  "My world just gets stranger all the time."

"This won't hurt a bit," Sara said, easing the needle into the artery in Nikolai's arm, filling three test tubes capped with different colors of stoppers, indicating the liquid medium the blood would mix with.  She handed each to Greg as she switched them out.  Pulling out the needle, she held a piece of gauze over the puncture for a few moments, then covered it with a Band-Aid.

"How long will it take?" Nikolai asked Greg.

"That depends, Mr. Come ... Comen ..."

"Call me Nikolai," he said, smiling.

"Okay, thanks.  That depends, Nikolai.  Sometimes tests lead to others.  Some have to have their results validated if they're positive.  The PCR DNA scan will take about two days, minimum.  The blood work will take about three probably, though each test doesn't take that long.  The other RFLP DNA scan could take weeks.  And all of that assumes that Grissom doesn't come in here and bump it for a case."

"I did not realize it would take so long," he said, disappointed.

"Few people do," Sara said.  "They think we can just pop a drop of blood into a machine and have it spit out all the answers in a few minutes."

"We can but dream," Greg said, starry-eyed. 

"Explain these tests to me, please," Nikolai asked.  "... in words I can understand," he added smiling warmly.

"Okay, I'll try," Greg said.  "Each one of these glass tubes has your blood and other chemicals in them.  I'll use them for a lot of different tests.  Some are easy, where I just mix your blood with even more chemicals.  If a certain thing happens, it tells me something.

"Some tests I prepare a sample in these little plastic tubes to go into machines.  The machines will look for certain things in your blood.

"I'll do a lot of tests with these cards.  They all have little dots on them, see?"

Nikolai nodded.

"I'll put a drop of your blood on each card, which will tell me something about your blood.  If a dot turns a color, that means one thing.  If it doesn't, that means another."

"What are you looking for?" Nikolai asked.

"I'll be testing everything:  your species, your blood type, enzyme markers, antigens, antibodies.  These are all things in your blood that are determined by genetics.  But the coolest tests will be the DNA.  The PCR scan doesn't take too long, about 2 days.  It'll show just a small part of your chromosomes.  That doesn't tell us much, but it's quick. 

"But this bad boy over here," Greg said with a smile, patting a machine, "will show us a whole lot more of your genetic make-up, and it's very accurate.  Problem is, it takes two or three weeks."

"I see now why it will take so long.  Thank you for explaining it to me, Greg."

"Well, I better get busy," he said, pulling on a fresh pair of gloves.  "Shoo!  Go away!  Genius at work!" he teased, herding them from his lab.

"He is a strange one," Nikolai said.  "But I like him."

"Yeah, he's a good guy and very good at his job."

He walked her silently to her car, grasping her at the elbow.  "If I am not at work, you may call me at this number," he said, writing another phone number on the back of a business card from the blood bank.  "It is my home phone number.  You may call me at any time.  I do not sleep much," he said.

"Sleep?  What's that?" Sara joked.  "I'll call you as soon as I know anything.  But don't be impatient.  Like Greg said, it'll probably be a few days before we know anything at all."

"He can be trusted?" Nikolai asked belatedly.

"I'd trust him with my life," Sara answered solemnly.

Sara was standing with her back to her car door, and Nikolai smoothly closed the gap between them.  He slowly ran his hands up each of her arms, stopping just short of her shoulders to pull her within inches of him.

It had been a while since Sara was this physically close to any man, and the feeling was intoxicating.  She felt an almost magnetic pull towards him.  Their eyes locked, and she felt like his black eyes were tarry pools that mired her in their depths. 

She tried desperately to pull away, not only because of where she was, and what he was, but because some part of her mind still held out hope that one day she would find the key to unlock Grissom. 

But her body betrayed her heart, not obeying her commands to move.

He pulled her closer to himself, an agonizing millimeter at a time, it seemed.  The tension between them crackled with static electricity, potential energy seeking a release.

At the last moment, Sara turned her head slightly, and his kiss buffed her cheek rather than her lips.  He pulled back slowly, pretending not to be disappointed.  Lowering her into the car seat, he smiled and bid her a good evening.

He strode resolutely to his vehicle, assured that he would soon be vindicated, at least on one level.  Though it wouldn't help him in any court of law, he wanted to be sure that Sara knew that he didn't kill maliciously.  He was positive that the impressive machinery and quirky scientist would find out what makes him different.

Looking at the clock on her dashboard, Sara decided that she'd get much more sleep if she stayed there, and tilted the car's seat all the way back.  She set the alarm on her cell phone, locked the door, and almost immediately fell asleep, exhausted.

* * * * *

When the cell phone roused her, she automatically brought it to her ear, but realized it was the alarm.  Still groggy, she made her way sleepily into the lab, hoping that Greg would part with some decent coffee.

"Sara, can I see you a moment?" Grissom asked as she approached the DNA/Chem Lab. 

"Can I get a cup of coffee first?  Meet you in your office?" she asked, stifling a yawn.

"Yes, of course," he said, retreating back into the darkness of his home away from home.

Greg wasn't in his lab, so Sara had to settle for the coffee in the break room.

She trudged into his office, finding a seat and immediately beginning her caffeine infusion for the night.

"You look beat," Grissom said.

"Thanks," she answered.  "You really know how to sweet talk a girl," she said, taking another sip of the strong brew.

"Would you like to take the night off?" Grissom asked.

"No.  I'm fine.  Just let me get a couple of cups of coffee in me and I'll be raring to go."  Sara twisted a bit in her chair and even Grissom could hear a series of pops from her spine.

"Ow!  That hurt good," she said, able to take bigger gulps of her coffee, now that it had cooled below scalding temperature. 

Grissom looked at her strangely.

"Slept in my car," she said, answering his silent question.

"Why?" he asked.

"The time it would take me to get home and get back would have been at least half an hour less sleep," she answered.  "Where did you sleep?" she asked.

"In my bed," he answered.  "I slept this morning, when I first got home."

"I should try that sometime," she said absently, tilting her cup up to get every last drop of caffeine.  "In my bed, not yours," she added quickly, chuckling at her faux pas.

"Sara, I'd like to ask you to do something for me.  Obviously, you don't have to.  But I'd really appreciate it," Grissom said, a bit nervously.

"Sure.  What is it?" she asked, looking at him, trying to blink the sleep from her eyes.

"I understand why you brought Comenescu here this afternoon, but from now on, could you please meet him somewhere else?"

"Okay," she agreed slowly.  "But that's the first time he's been here."

"I mean the parking lot as well.  Couldn't you just meet someplace other than the lab?" he asked, a pained grimace on his face.

"Sure.  I guess so.  Why?" she asked, putting a hand across her mouth as she yawned.

"It, um, bothers me," he said uncertainly. 

When she stared at him blankly, not comprehending, he blurted out, "I don't want to be walking to my car and see him kissing you again."

"Oh," Sara said heavily.  "But I didn't let him kiss me.  Not on the lips anyway."

"I know.  But you will the next time.  And I don't want to see it," Grissom said, trying to sound like it was a professional request, but his voice gave him away.

"Give me a reason not to let him kiss me at all the next time.  Have breakfast with me after work," Sara said, leaning towards him hopefully.

"No," Grissom said, turning away.  "I can't," he said with his back to her so that she couldn't see the conflict in his eyes.

"You'd go if Catherine or Nick or Warrick asked you," she countered.

"That's not the same thing.  It wouldn't be a date with any of them," he answered leadenly.

"So don't call it a date.  It's just two co-workers having breakfast," Sara suggested.

"You are a temptress ... a siren sweetly singing," Grissom exhaled, still turned away from her.

"Have breakfast with me," she said again, just a bit more forcefully.  "I promise I won't do anything embarrassing.  I won't touch you or make a pass at you or anything like that."

"To move a boulder to the bottom of a hill, you don't have to push it all the way down.  All you have to do it get it started.  Move it just a bit.  Get it off balance.  Next thing you know, it's tumbling all the way down, on its own momentum," Grissom told her, turning to meet her eyes.

"Maybe the boulder would like it better at the bottom of the hill," Sara suggested.

"I'm sure it would, but that's not its place," he countered.  "And do you know how hard it would be to get the boulder back up the hill?"

"Couldn't we at least be like we were before?  We could be friends.  We could talk and spend time together, and I could just pretend.  Like before," she asked wistfully.

"It's too late for that now, Sara," Grissom answered.  "It's gone past that, and I don't think we can't ever go back."

"So we're just stuck in some neverland between being friends and being lovers?  So that means we can't be either one?  I don't understand that," she said, shaking her head vehemently.

"Nevertheless, that's the dilemma we're faced with.  If you can find a way out, let me know."

"Have breakfast with me," she asked, softly, but pleadingly.

"No." 

The curtness of his reply cut through her, but she felt this might be their last chance at any form of relationship, so she was willing to ignore it.

"Have breakfast with me."

"I can't."

"Have breakfast with me."

"Sara ..."

"Have breakfast with me."

"Stop it!" Grissom barked, turning back away from her.

"Have breakfast with me," she said more gently, getting up to walk around his desk, forcing him to face her.

"Don't."

"I'm not going to do anything," she said, crouching down in front of him. 

"Sara, you've got to stop pushing me," he said, his eyes showing her his desire commingled with sheer panic.  I can't hold out much longer.

"It's just breakfast between friends. I promise," she said softly.

Grissom closed his eyes tightly, drawing in a deep breath and exhaling loudly.

"I promise," she repeated.  "Have I ever lied to you?"

"No, I don't think so.  You haven't always told me the whole truth, though," he said sadly.

"I'm telling you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  I won't let anything happen.  Even if you start it," she promised solemnly, then smiled and drew a large "X" across her chest.  "Cross my heart and hope to die."

"Just eating breakfast out in public and talking as friends?  Nothing else."

"Nothing else.  Just eating and talking.  Just like we used to."

"And if I do this?"

"Why would I spend my free time with anyone else, if I could be spending it with you?" she asked, her meaning clear.

Grissom exhaled sharply again, his eyes never leaving hers.  "In that case, you want to get some breakfast after work?" he asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

"Sure.  Sounds great.  I'll catch up with you after work," she said, with the same equanimity.  She stood and smiled broadly at him for the first time in ages it seemed. 

I've missed that.  Her smile.  Sometimes I think I'd walk over hot coals just to see it, if I know it's for me.

"Wow, look at the time," Sara said, peering at the clock on his wall.  "You better get to assignments soon before we wander off to look for crimes on our own," she teased.  Giving him one last reassuring smile, she slipped through the door, leaving him to decompress.

* * * * *

Sara pulled two bottles of water from the refrigerator, setting one down in front of Catherine.  Nick and Warrick were ogling the Consumer Reports guide for this year's new vehicles, making strange gutteral sounds that sounded almost sexual if one weren't looking.

"Thanks," Catherine said, a little uncomfortably.

"Welcome," Sara said, twisting the cap off of her water and tossing the plastic across the room into the trash can.

"Good shot," Catherine said, not attempting to duplicate it.

"Misspent youth," Sara shrugged.

"Playing basketball?" Catherine asked, knowing that Sara was more athletic than she was, and certainly would have been tall enough.

"No, just throwing things," she answered, casting a mischievous grin.

Catherine chuckled, shaking her head. 

"Don't worry.  Everything's cool now," Sara assured her.

"That was some intense scene back there."

"Yeah, it was ugly, but we worked it out.  Sorry to put you in the middle of it.  That had to be uncomfortable," Sara said, turning up the bottle to chug several ounces of water.

"Yeah, you could say that," Catherine snorted, hoping that Sara was right as she watched Grissom wander into the room, still flipping through the assignments.

"You get lost?" Catherine teased him.

"Huh?" he asked, looking up.

"Never mind.  What have we got?"

"The usual mayhem," he answered.  "Would you guys like to join us?" he asked Nick and Warrick pointedly.

"Yeah, sure," Warrick answered, scooting his chair back over to the table.

"Oh, I so want that car," Nick said, theatrically kissing the page before closing the magazine, finally directing his attention to Grissom.

* * * * *

Grissom looked up nervously when he realized Sara was leaning against his doorframe. 

"Shift's over," she said, pointing to the clock.

"So it is," he murmured, closing files and gathering his belongings.  "How do you want to do this?  You drive?  I drive?"

"Why don't we just meet there?" Sara said in a low, soothing voice, trying to defuse the tension.

"Okay.  Sure.  Where do you want to eat?" he asked.

"I don't care.  How about the diner we usually eat at when we're all together?" she suggested.

"Don't you want to go someplace nicer than that?" he asked.

"It's not a date, Grissom.  It's just a generic breakfast.  Remember?"

"Yes, I remember," he said absently, searching amongst the clutter on his desk for his keys. 

"Hey, if you want, you can ask Catherine to come along.  As a chaperone," Sara offered.

"We're adults.  We don't need a chaperone," Grissom snapped.  "Damn!  Where are my keys?"

"Did you look in your pockets?" Sara asked dryly.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Grissom looked up sheepishly, pulling out his keys. 

"It'll be okay, Grissom.  Trust me," Sara assured him.  "Pretend it's a crime scene or the interrogation room, if that helps.  You aren't usually nervous around me there."

Walking up to her on the way out, he leaned in and said quietly, "I can pretend anything I want, but we both know this is a date."

"In the last fifteen years, I've dated other men a time or two.  They all lived to tell the tale," she whispered back, smiling.

"I doubt they risked as much," Grissom parried as they stepped out into the corridor, effectively silencing her until they were out of the building.

As they were shocked by the harsh Nevada sunlight outside the lab doors, Sara turned to him to answer as she slipped her sunglasses on.  "At least one has risked his life.  Does that count?"

Some part of Grissom's psyche wanted to shout back at her:  Yes, Nikolai Comenescu has risked his life for you, and what did it get him?  You're going to betray him, and we both know it.  Will you look me in the eye and betray me someday?

But he knew why she was betraying Nikolai.  She was putting the needs of society over her own, and he had to respect her for that.  And she would never have been involved with Comenescu were it not for Grissom's own stubbornness.

Allowing his better angel to speak, Grissom answered her calmly, "Yes, that counts.  What's it feel like to have men willing to risk their careers or even their lives to be with you?  Nobody's ever given up anything to be with me."

"I have," Sara answered evenly, slipping into her car.  "I've given up a lot to be with you."

Stunned, Grissom watched her pull out of the lot onto Tropicana.  He knew she was giving up seeing Comenescu, but he felt like she was talking about something more.  As he walked to his car, he found himself becoming more curious about what she felt like she had to give up to be with him.

* * * * *

"See, you managed to survive breakfast, after all," Sara said, walking more slowly to her car, feeling the effects of a full stomach after a full night of work on only a few hours of sleep.

"Yes, I enjoyed myself," Grissom admitted, ambling casually at her side, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.

"Would you like to do it again sometime?" she asked casually, this time not pressing him.

"Yes," he answered.  "It's nice to be able to talk to someone who cares, but doesn't try to drag your life story out of you."

"Yes, it is," she agreed, slipping on her sunglasses.  At her car she looked up and down the street, then tilted her head down and repeated the motion, peering over her sunglasses.

"What are you looking at?" Grissom asked, turning to scan the street.

"Nothing.  I was just thinking how different everything looks during the day.  It's like a totally different place."

"I prefer it at night," Grissom said, disdainfully.

"Yeah, looks pretty dirty and cheesy in the harsh light of day," she agreed.

"What do you do all day?" Grissom asked, his face showing a friendly curiosity.  They each leaned casually against the side of her car, facing each other, an arm propped up on the roof.

"The usual stuff.  I clean house.  I take a bath or a shower.  Maybe make something to eat.  I read ... a lot.  Surf the 'Net.  In the afternoon, I sleep.  At night I watch a little TV. Sometimes I get especially bored and go to a movie.  That's about it.  Pretty boring life, other than the 40 hours a week I work."

Grissom looked over the top rim of his sunglasses, smirking.  "How many hours a week do you work?"

"Okay, 50 or 60," she conceded.

Grissom raised his eyebrows. 

"Sometimes more, if I'm on a hot case," she mumbled.

"Uh huh," he intoned, nodding his head sagely.

"And you're different how?" she asked, smiling.

"I'm management.  I'm supposed to work more hours, since they don't have to pay me more."

"Hmmm.  I'm sure you work all those hours just to help the budget," Sara teased.  "Eckley's on salary, too, and I don't see him working 16 hours a day."

"Please don't compare me to Eckley," Grissom moaned.

"There is no parameter on earth where Eckley can compare to you," she said matter-of-factly.

"Why, thank you.  That's the nicest thing you've said to me in a long time," Grissom said with a grin.

"You haven't been exactly receptive to compliments for a while," she said softly, smiling to take the edge off of her comment.

"Do you remember the Greek myth of Sisyphus?  His punishment was to push a boulder uphill all day, only to have it roll back down.  Then he'd have to start all over.  A never-ending struggle that he was doomed to fail at."

"Back to the boulder analogy?" Sara asked. 

"Yeah, but the point of this one is a little different," he countered.  "My point is that I've been trying to do something, and I seem constantly doomed to failure."

"What have you failed at?" she asked gently, concern infusing every syllable.  Without thinking, she reached out and put a comforting hand on his arm.

He turned and mimicked her action, but moved his hand slowly up and down her arm.  "I've failed at being able to ignore you," he whispered.

"You could have fooled me," she laughed, pulling back from him, making it appear natural by unlocking her car door.

"Even Sisyphus could get the boulder part-way up the mountain;  he just couldn't keep it there," he answered, closing the gap between them again.

Sara didn't want to make him any more uncomfortable, but she'd promised him that she wouldn't let things escalate.  For a moment, she cynically wondered if this were a test – but one look at him told her it wasn't. 

"Well, I better run.  I didn't get much sleep last night, and I thought I'd try the Grissom method and go to sleep as soon as I get home," she said brightly, turning in the tight space between him and the car.  He didn't step back, and she couldn't open the door without knocking into him.  She turned back to face him.

He sat a hand on her shoulder, which might look comradely to the casual observer, but Sara was leery.  Her fears were confirmed when his index finger ventured out towards her neck, its soft stroke raising goosebumps on her body.

The boulder's momentum slowly began to build, and he leaned in towards her, stopped just centimeters shy of her lips by her hand pushing firmly on his chest.

"I'll see you at work tonight," she said, her voice quivering.

"I thought the consolation prize was a kiss on the cheek," he countered, a bit gruffly.

"That was rude," Sara shot back.

"I apologize," Grissom said, genuinely contrite.  "I just ...," he trailed off, shrugging.

"I stopped it for you, whether you see that or not.  It's broad daylight, in a public place.  And I made a promise that I intend to keep," she explained.

"You're right," he said, taking a step back and putting his hands in the comfortable confines of his pockets.  "See, this is the sort of thing I was afraid of."

"But everything's okay," she said.  "Nothing happened."

"This time.  But I'm getting tired of pushing that boulder up the mountain," he said softly.

"Then stop and rest," she suggested.   

"When can I see you again?" he asked anxiously.

"I'll see you tonight, at work," she answered.

"You know what I mean," he said in mock-exasperation.

"Same deal?  Breakfast tomorrow?  A public place?"

"No.  Somewhere private," he said, lowering his voice.

"Not yet, Grissom," she said, shaking her head 'no'.

"Is it because of him?" he asked. 

Sara was glad she couldn't see his eyes.  She could already see the hurt reflected in the set of his face, and it certainly wasn't her intention to cause him pain.

"No, it has nothing to do with him.  I just think you need to give us some more time to get reacquainted."

"We've known each other for years," Grissom complained.  "It's already been too much time."

"That's not a very Zen way of looking at it," Sara teased.  "When it's time, it's time.  Until then, it's not.  Don't push things;  just let them unfold."

"How can you say that with a straight face?" Grissom asked, grinning.  "You pushed things ... on more than one occasion!"

"I didn't say I was into Zen!" Sara laughed.  "I'm hardly the poster child for the Middle Path."

"No, moderation isn't one of your primary character traits," Grissom chuckled, glad that the tension was starting to dissipate.  He had been annoyed with himself for trying to kiss her, and annoyed with her for stopping him.  He was afraid he'd ruined their time together, as well as his chances of another date.  Her laughter told him otherwise.

"I really do have to bug out on you, Grissom, no pun intended," Sara said.  I know I have a reputation for not having to sleep, but it's not really deserved.  I have to try to fit in a few hours a day;  more if I skip a day," she joked.

"I'll see you tonight," Grissom said as she started her Yukon and drove off with a wave and a grin.  He'd seen her smile at him more times in the past couple of hours than he'd seen in the past several months combined, and it felt good.  It almost made him forget the guilt, the fear, and the feeling of impending doom.

* * * * *

"You're with me," Grissom said, pointing at Sara briefly, then walking quickly down the hall towards the exit. 

Sara shoved the rest of her lunch back into the paper sack and twisted the cap onto her water bottle, shrugging at Nick's and Greg's confused stares, their own sandwiches held mid-air.

"What's up?" Sara asked, pulling on her vest, switching her lunch from one hand to the other.

"White female, early twenties.  Found in the hills near Lake Mead.  Exsanguinated," Grissom rattled off, pushing both of their field kits into the back of the Tahoe and slamming the doors.

"It hasn't been long enough," Sara mumbled, her brow creased in thought.

"Have you seen Comenescu in the past couple of days?" Grissom asked when they were safely in the SUV.

"No," she answered wide-eyed.  "I've had breakfast with you every day for the past three days."

"You might have seen him some other time during the day," Grissom said, trying to sound unaffected.

"I told you I wouldn't, and I haven't," Sara answered tersely.  It hadn't been that long since Nikolai had committed the last murder.  And this victim was young.  Maybe he realized she wasn't going to see him anymore and reverted back to his original prey.

"Sara, I'm not accusing you of anything," Grissom said nervously.  "I thought that maybe he called, wanted to talk or something.  Maybe about the blood tests.  Or maybe you spoke with him to break off your relationship."

"I haven't seen him or spoken to him for three days," Sara reiterated.   

"Speaking of tests, has Greg gotten back to you with any of the results yet?  He should have several of the serological tests completed."

"Oh, yeah!  He was just telling me about some of them at lunch, but all of this distracted me.  Most of them are inconclusive."

"What do you mean?  Which ones?"

"All of them, pretty much."

"Surely the simple immunoassays, like the ABO group or species test ..."

"Inconclusive."

"Where the samples contaminated?"

"Nope.  I drew them right there in Greg's lab, and he'd cleaned off his workstation before he began processing."

"Maybe the reagents are expired or contaminated," Grissom suggested.

"Greg already thought of that.  Most of them had only been opened this week, but he still checked them with the GC mass spec.  All of them are within the proper concentration tolerances.  No contaminants."

"Which species test did he use?  Precipitin?"

"Yes, he started with the ring precipitin test.  When it was inconclusive, he used an Ouchterlony test.  Then Crossed-Over Electrophoresis.  Finally, he went with the DNA markers from the PCR DNA scan that just finished."

"What precisely does he mean by 'inconclusive'?" Grissom asked.  "Where they negative?"

"No.  They were weak positives, but below the threshold for positive.  Normally, that would indicate any higher primate, from a chimp to a human."

"So it doesn't rule out human," Grissom said firmly.

"No, but it doesn't rule out nonhuman, either," Sara countered.  "He should know for sure when the RFLP DNA test is done in a couple of weeks.  He's going to print out the plates, as well as allow the computer to estimate the alleles.  He says he wants to see it with his own eyes."

"Sara, there are no such things as vampires," Grissom said, too patronizingly for her taste.

"I don't know one way or the other.  I haven't seen every species of every living thing on earth.  And I'm not hubristic enough to think I know everything," she added heatedly.

"I'm sorry," Grissom said heavily.  "I'm not trying to start a fight."  The last thing he wanted was for Nikolai Comenescu to come between them again, when she hadn't seen him since she and Grissom began their daily breakfasts.

"I'm going to call him.  Find out what the hell's going on," she sputtered, pulling out her cell phone. 

After a few moments, realizing that it was the middle of the night and he might be sleeping, Sara was just getting ready to hang up.  Then he answered.

"Hello, Sara," he said, his voice as smooth and rich as cocoa made with cream and Belgian chocolate.

"Hello, Nikolai," she said, trying not to sound curt.

"What is wrong, my sweet?" he asked, sensing her tension.

"Nikolai, it's only been a few days.  And you told me there wouldn't be any more young women."

Grissom couldn't help but react to her last sentence.  She hadn't told him that she and Comenescu had directly discussed the murders.  Depending on what he said, it could make her an accessory-after-the-fact unless she documents it, and even then the information was obtained without Mirandizing the suspect, making it inadmissible.

"What are you talking about, Sara?"

"I'm talking about a dead girl near Lake Mead. Exsanguinated."

"It was not me, I assure you," Nikolai said, sounding sincere.

"Don't tell me there're more of you.  What?  Are we going to become Vampire Central?" she huffed out.

"I do not know if there is another, but I promise you that I did not do this thing you are speaking of.  I will not need to hunt again for almost a week."

"I hope you're telling me the truth," Sara said, her mind reeling.

"I am.  Have you gotten back any of the tests?" he asked, unable to be patient as long as she was already on the phone.

"A couple.  They were inconclusive, so Greg's running more sophisticated tests."

"What does 'inconclusive' mean?"

"It means we can't prove you're human, but we also can't prove you're not."

"That would be reasonable, considering that I am human, yet I am not.  Would you have breakfast with me this morning?" he asked sweetly.

Sara looked over quickly at Grissom, who saw her nervous gesture out of the corner of his eye.  He could assume what she was hearing.

"No, Nikolai.  I can't have breakfast with you today.  I have other plans," she answered purposefully loudly enough for Grissom to hear plainly.

"Ah.  Maybe some other time?"

"Perhaps, but I doubt it."

"Are you with Svengali?" he asked, a teasing lilt to his voice.

"Yeah, but it's not what you think," she answered.

"You do not know what I think," he said, more seriously. 

"You're right about that," she exhaled.  "I've got to go."

"I do need to speak with you ... in person.  You may bring Svengali with you, if you are afraid of me now," Nikolai said, a hint of sadness in his voice.

"I'm not afraid of you," she said quickly.

Grissom couldn't discern her meaning from the tone of her voice.  Was she reassuring Comenescu?  Or was he threatening her?  Either way, a generalized anger began to build in his stomach, making it roil and churn like the ocean during a typhoon.

"Actually, I do not need to speak with you.  Please let me speak to Dr. Grissom," he said.

Sara silently held the phone mid-air between her and Grissom.  He glanced over at her questioningly, then took the phone from her, allowing his hand to cover hers for a moment.

"Grissom," he said tensely into the phone, his anger with Comenescu evident in his voice.

"There is no cause to be menacing with me, Dr. Grissom.  It would appear that am no threat to you on any level," Nikolai assured him.

"What do you want?" Grissom asked, a bit less angry and a bit more confused.

"I want to talk with you," Nikolai answered simply.

"So talk."

"No, not over the phone.  I must see your eyes as we speak, and you must see me.  I must know what is in your heart."

"I'm a little busy right now, considering there's another dead girl," Grissom huffed out.

"I am not responsible for that, as I assured Sara."

"I doubt you'd admit it if you were," Grissom said.

"I would.  I am responsible for the other four deaths that Sara has been investigating," Nikolai admitted freely.

"Did you tell her that?" Grissom asked, dread beginning to join the anger in his chest.

"No, not directly.  I merely told her that I am not a murderer.  I kill only to feed, like every living thing."

"If you're not careful, you're going to get her into a lot of trouble.  Leave her alone.  Am I making myself clear?" Grissom said forcefully.

Sara turned her head towards the window, competing emotions swirling in her mind.  It was annoying to have Grissom interject himself into her dealings with Nikolai.  But, she had admit that it also gave her a warm feeling to know that he was trying to protect her, though his efforts along that line in the past had only incensed her.

"I will leave her alone under one circumstance, but I will not discuss it over the phone.  You will meet with me," Nikolai commanded.

Grissom's first inclination was to resist Comenescu's demands, on principle.  But he had to know what his intentions were toward Sara.

"I'll call you later to arrange it," Grissom agreed.

"Very good.  I do think that you will not regret it," Comenescu said.  "Goodbye, Svengali," he chuckled, hanging up the phone.

"Svengali?" Grissom asked aloud, peering at the phone as if it had the answer.

Sara couldn't help but grin, and Grissom could see it in the reflection in the window glass.

"Care to explain that?" Grissom asked, handing her phone back to her.

"It's sort of a nickname Nikolai has for you," she answered simply. 

"Based on ...?" Grissom said, leading her.

"He thinks that you captured my mind," she said lightly.

"I what?" Grissom asked, totally befuddled.

"You captured my mind," Sara laughed.  "When we first met and you convinced me to go into forensics."

"He obviously doesn't know you very well if he thinks anyone can make you do anything you don't want to do," Grissom returned, his own mood lightening to match hers.

"Perhaps he knows me better than you think," she offered tantalizingly.  "But he didn't say you made me do something I didn't want to do.  I think he's implying that you made me want to do it."

"Same thing.  There is no 'making' Sara Sidle do anything," Grissom laughed.  "God knows, I've tried!"

"Do you think I'd be in this field if we had never met?" Sara asked, as if it were a discussion topic in a philosophy class.

"I never really thought about it.  You are such a natural at forensics, that it just seems like you were born to it," Grissom answered.

"No.  You were born to it, not me!" she laughed, turning to look at him.  He was sitting casually at the wheel, his face relaxed, but lined with a smile that creased the skin surrounding his lips and eyes. 

Her laughter died suddenly, as she was seized by an emotion she couldn't describe.  All she knew was that she wished she could take a picture of him right now, to capture this moment with him forever.  She knew that she was as happy as she'd ever been.

Realizing that she was silent and looking at him, Grissom turned briefly to her.  His breathing stopped for a few seconds as he recognized a look on her face he hadn't seen in months ... no, maybe years.  For the too-short moment that he could hold her eyes, he felt adored. 

He had to turn his attention back to the road, just in time, as their exit approached.  Within minutes, they were pulling up next to two Sheriff's Department vehicles, their red and blue lights flashing across the arbor like giant Christmas tree lights.

As they opened their doors, both could feel the shift from what they were together in the car to what they were together at a scene, but it felt like an easy, comfortable change this time.

It was as Sara had always expected, but complete different from what Grissom had always feared.  Instead of the discomfort he had anticipated would come if he were to ever become involved with her, it instead brought back the synergy they had once felt whenever they worked together.

Brass led them wordlessly to the body, and they began to move in sync with each other, circling the area, their flashlights arcing to and fro as Brass detailed what little he knew. 

"Sarah Anne Thompson, age 22.  Last seen leaving her apartment yesterday at noon.  No missing persons report yet.  Hikers over there found her," he said, nodding towards a young couple huddled together under an arbor of trees.  The young lady was buried in the chest of the young man, still sobbing, as he was apparently giving his statement to a Deputy. 

Grissom felt a compassion for the boy, who had his arms wrapped around the girl, but seemed unable to find a way to comfort her.  He would occasionally look down at her and open his mouth as though to speak, but it would shut and he would close his eyes for a moment, apparently unable to find the words she needed to hear.

Brass was walking towards the couple, leaving Gil and Sara to their work.  Sara looked at Grissom, then turned to look at the couple, trying to see what had captured his attention. 

"What is it?" she asked, seeing that he was obviously intent on watching them.

"Nothing," he said, turning back suddenly to the body, exhaling heavily.

"Tell me," she prodded gently, as he squatted down next to her by the bloodied corpse.

"Nothing, really.  I just ... I guess I just felt – I don't know – sorry, for him," Grissom said, shrugging.

"Him?  Why?  He seems fine.  The girl's kind of shaken up, but she's young, so that's to be expected."

"He ..." Grissom began, but stalled.

"What?" she asked, smiling encouragingly.

"He doesn't know what to say to make her feel better," he finally blurted out.

"Oh, I see," Sara said, nodding as she opened her kit and pulled out a fresh pair of gloves, snapping each on in one fluid motion.

"You do?" Grissom asked, digging in his own case for his own gloves.

"Yes, I do," she said, snapping on her flashlight to examine the girl's throat.  "You empathize with him.  It's not like that's a bad thing."

"I never know what to say to make you feel better," Grissom admitted quietly, as he bent over to examine the area that both of their flashlights were illuminating.  "I always say the wrong thing."

Sara smiled.  She couldn't lie to him and tell him that he's wrong, but she didn't want to make him feel any worse by agreeing.  She compromised, intoning just loud enough for him to hear, "Don't worry about it.  Sometimes you accidentally say the nicest things, too.  So it works both ways."

"Sara, this one's different," Grissom said suddenly, gingerly lifting Sarah Anne Thompson's chin to expose the gaping opening in her throat.

Sara took several pictures, then looked to David.  "May I?" she asked, her hands hovering just over the girl's throat.

"Sure.  I've already taken my own pictures and documented everything.  She's been declared dead," he said, nodding seriously.

Sara carefully laid each strip back towards the center of the wound, trying to reconstruct the original configuration of the torn flesh as best as was possible.

"It's not all here.  Look at the bite marks.  They're deep.  Very deep.  And there's shredding.  David, come help," she directed.

"Pull her up a bit by the shoulders," she instructed.  Sarah Anne's head flopped over at an unnatural angle.  Sara grasped her head with one hand, and felt under the neck with the other and she moved the head.  "Neck's broken," she said, looking to David for comfirmation. 

David laid her back down and moved around to behind her head, lifting it gently and rocking it, feeling under her neck.  "You're right," he stated simply.

Sara stood for a moment to let the circulation return to her legs, shining the light on the ground around the girl until she found what she was looking for in a small area of dirt between patches of grass.

"There.  Look, Grissom," she said, moving closer to her target.

"Mountain lion," Grissom said, nodding at the large paw print.  "Torn throat, broken neck.  It's possible."

"She's dressed appropriately for hiking.  The lion attacked her, dragging her, or trying to, by the neck."

"Maybe those hikers scared it off, without ever even seeing it," Grissom postulated.

"If it were trying to move the kill, without eating it, then the lion is probably a female with cubs," Sara theorized.

"You've been watching the Discovery Channel again," Grissom teased, eliciting a grin from her.  "Our job's the same, either way.  Let's get her processed."

* * * * *

The drive back began quietly, each feeling the satisfaction of a job well done.  They had worked together well, without the hesitation and discomfort that had often marked their interactions for almost a year.

"I know this sounds strange, considering the circumstances," Sara began uncertainly, "but I feel kind of guilty for assuming this was Nikolai's doing.  I jumped down his throat about it before I had any of the facts."

"I think we all assumed it was him again, and that's natural.  He's been behind the other four victims with torn throats," he said, realizing that he'd said it a little too harshly.  He looked over at Sara apologetically, but she didn't seem to take notice.

"I feel like I should call and apologize," she murmured, knowing it would probably bother Grissom.

"If he hadn't admitted he was guilty of the other four killings, then maybe I could find a way to see why you'd feel that way," Grissom said, incredulously.

"He's never admitted it directly," she said distantly.

"He did to me," Grissom countered.

"When?" Sara asked, turning to him.

"When I talked to him earlier, on the way to the lake.  He told me plainly that he was responsible for the other four victims."

"Why would he do that?" she asked nonplussed.

"I don't know.  You tell me," Grissom said, shrugging.

"I certainly don't know.  Every time I think I know some guy, he surprises me.  I don't know if that's because I didn't really know them at all, or because they're that unpredictable," she said, shaking her head.

Grissom glanced over, his eyes questioning her.

"Yeah, that means you, too," she said.  "Maybe I should just give up on guys entirely.  Join a convent or something," she said acerbically, her body seeming to slump noticeably in the seat of the SUV.

"I'd prefer you didn't," Grissom said simply, turning to give her a hopeful smile.

"It would probably be best, all the way around.  Think of all the trouble it would have saved both of us," she said, her voice colored the dark hue of regret.

"What did you give up?" Grissom asked suddenly, his mouth starting to feel dry as he began to realize that she might be serious, at least to some extent.

"What?" she asked distractly.

"You told me you gave up something for me.  What was it?" he asked anxiously. 

"Not much, really.  Just the life I had," she answered, turning to look out the window into the pitch black of night outside of the city.

As was often the case, she left him unable to think of what to say.  What do you say when someone tells you they gave up everything they had to be with you?  Especially when you remember guiltily that you never considered that, much less appreciated it.

"I ... I ..." Gil sputtered, trying as desperately as the young hiker to find the words that would make it all better.

"Forget I mentioned it," she said, turning to give him a wan smile.  "It was a long time ago."

"I can't just forget it," he said heavily.

"Just because I picked up and moved here to be with you doesn't make you indebted to me.  It wasn't your decision."

"I asked you to come here, so it was partly my responsibility," he said gravely.

"Yeah, I always wondered why you did that," she said distantly.  "Our lab gets like two or three thousand applications a year.  Why did you call me?" she asked, turning to him.

"You're a good CSI," he said, trying to avoid the more obvious answer.

"I'm good, but I'm not that good, or at least certainly not back then," she stated firmly.  "I'm sure there were better, more experienced CSIs that you could have gotten with a single phone call."

"You were the first one I thought of," he answered simply.

"Why?" she challenged him, twisting in the confines of the seatbelt to be able to see his face in the dim light from the dashboard.

"I wanted you here," he answered uncertainly.

"Why?"

"Because I just did," he said with some frustration.

"For the same reason I came here?" she asked, giving him a way to answer without answering.

"Yes, I suppose so," he agreed.

"But ..." she said, giving him room to back off if he needed to.

His eyes remained on the road.  The only change to his face that she could see was that his jaws were clamped so tightly that the muscles were twitching under the skin.  Some part of him wanted to answer, but another was forcing him to remain silent.

"But you couldn't do the same thing," she finished for him.  "You were afraid you'd have to give up the life you had, and you couldn't do it," she said.  "It just wasn't worth it."

Rather than answering, Grissom turned to her, a pained grimace on his face.  He knew that it must have hurt for her to have to say that, even if she'd been thinking it for a few years.  He wondered if she knew how guilty he felt about that.

"I can't blame you, really.  It didn't exactly work out for me, so why should you make the same mistake?" she asked, straightening back in her seat so that she didn't have to look at him as she spoke.  If she looked at him, she was afraid that she'd crack before she could finish.  "I mean, it's a wise person who learns from others' mistakes instead of suffering through his own, right?"

"That wasn't the lesson I should have gotten from what you did," Grissom disagreed.  "I should have seen what you were doing.  If I had understood, the lesson would have been to have the courage to act on what I was feeling."

It was Sara's turn to feel remorse.  She had succeeded in making him feel guilty, when she knew that she had in a sense much less to lose than he had, and much less chance of losing it.

"I'm wrong to put you in that position," she said, without telling him what she was referring to. 

"Huh?" he asked, turning.

"All this time, I thought that it was just that you didn't care as much as I did.  I honestly didn't think about the chances of you losing everything.  I can probably get away with it, even if we're caught.  You can't."

Grissom didn't have any words of comfort for her, but could only exhale sharply when he thought about what the moment would be like when he was confronted with his transgression.

"Hey, no harm, no foul.  Nothing's happened yet.  There's got to be someone out there that you can care about who won't bring your career crashing down around you," she said sympathetically, even through a wavering voice.

"There's not," he said quietly.

"You haven't met every woman in Vegas, much less every woman out there," she said, trying to be upbeat. 

"You said a woman I could care about," he reminded her, pulling into the back row of the parking lot behind the lab. 

"There are a lot of good women," she said.

"Not that I care about.  There's only one," he said, turning off the ignition.  In the darkness he reached out for her, sliding his hand down her arm until he found her hand, taking it gently into his.

Sara wanted to argue, but a painful lump was in her throat, and she couldn't seem to push it down, no matter how hard she swallowed.  Her throat was dry, and her eyes were wet.  Without thinking, she grasped his hand a bit tighter, wanting to feel any part of him against her skin, needing to draw strength from him.

She could feel him coming closer to her, every nerve along her skin sensing his approach.  She felt his other hand move to the side of her head, his fingers delicately working their way into her hair.

She wanted to tell him 'no', not because she didn't want him to touch her, but because she did want him to, so much that she was close to forgetting where they were and what he was risking.

She found herself unable to move, or even to think, as she felt his breath on her face just before his lips brushed against hers.  The surge of electricity between them when they touched shocked her back to her senses.

"I can't do this to you," she said, bolting in one abrupt motion from the SUV, running at full speed towards the lab.

Grissom sank back into his seat, knowing it would be pointless to run after her.  She'd be in the lab in a few seconds, and he knew she wouldn't tolerate him making a scene, nor did he think it would accomplish anything.

* * * * *

"You have quite the way with women, no?" he heard as he felt added the weight of another person shift the SUV slightly.

"What are you doing here?" Grissom asked tiredly, not needing to have Nikolai throw his failure back in his face while he was still smarting from it.

"I told you that I wanted to speak with you," Nikolai answered.

"I'm really not in the mood for you right now," Grissom said, reaching for the door.

"What did you say to hurt Sara this time?" Comenescu asked, his voice turning eerily serious.

"Nothing," Grissom answered, unaffected by Comenescu's attempt to be menacing.

"Turn on the light.  Let me see your eyes," Nikolai commanded. 

Grissom turned on the interior light and turned to Comenescu, the disappointment still showing all over his face.

"What happened?" Nikolai asked, his voice shifting towards sympathy.

"None of your business," Grissom answered curtly.

"Why do you and Sara hurt each other so?  It does not have to be like this," he said, shaking his head.

"Sara and I are not your concern," Grissom stated flatly.

"Oh, but you are.  You see, if you were not always in her heart, I could take her away from here.  She would be happy."

"You think she'd be happy moving all over the world every few months so that you can kill indiscriminately wherever you go?  You don't know Sara very well."

"I could keep her apart from that.  She is only aware because she is here, with you, doing this work you do, Svengali," Nikolai answered accusingly.

"Don't call me that.  No man controls Sara Sidle."

"No man can command her, but you can entice her, no?  She will go where you go, and do what you do.  Is that not true?"

"Maybe once.  But apparently not anymore," Grissom answered, resignation in every word.

"What have you done?" Nikolai demanded, his black eyes flashing.  He had to restrain himself from the temptation to kill Grissom where he sat, leaving his body to bleed to death in the SUV. 

He wondered if taking in Grissom's blood would make him more like him in a good way or a bad way.  He opted not to risk it, fearing he would inculcate Grissom's innate ability to upset Sara.

"I kissed her," Grissom said, shrugging and chuckling mirthlessly.

"And that is why she was running all the way to your laboratory?  You must be an exceptionally poor kisser, Dr. Grissom," Nikolai laughed.

"I'm sure that's it," Grissom agreed sarcastically, opening the door and stepping out of the Tahoe.  He began to make his way to the lab, caught between Scylla and Charybdis.  He didn't want to stay outside and have Nikolai rub salt in his wounds.  But he didn't want to go inside and chance seeing Sara right now.  He knew it would hurt too bad.

"I would be willing to surrender and confess," Nikolai shouted out from the back of the Tahoe.  His handmade silk suit hung smartly on his muscular frame as he leaned against the back of the Tahoe, his hands shoved casually into the pockets of his slacks.  In the darkness of the SUV, Grissom hadn't noticed how he was dressed.

"Call Detective Brass," Grissom called over his shoulder and he turned back towards the lab. 

"I have a condition," Nikolai called out.

"You can discuss a plea bargain with the District Attorney,' Grissom growled.

"The District Attorney cannot meet my demand.  Only you can," Nikolai shouted.

Grissom stopped and slowly pivoted, exasperated.  "What is your demand, Mr. Comenescu?"

"It is – how do you say it here? – oh yes, simple but not easy," Nikolai taunted, drawing Grissom closer to him.

"I'm listening," Grissom retorted gruffly.

"You must love Sara.  Not only in your heart – for you already do that, no?  That is the simple part.  You must love her in such a way that she knows that you love her.  Now the truly hard part for you:  you must show her and you must tell her."

Grissom settled in next to him at the back of the Tahoe, hands also in his pockets, with his left foot propped under him, heel on the bumper.  Add a can of beer in their hands, and they would look like two neighbors out in the driveway talking about the football game or how to get rid of crabgrass.

Grissom snorted a chuckle and shook his head.

"Is that such a ridiculous thing for you to do?" Nikolai asked, letting his head roll over to look at Grissom.

"No, that's not why I'm laughing," Grissom said.  "I laughing because that's just what I was trying to do when she ran away."

"Women!" Nikolai exhaled in confusion.

"Yeah," Grissom agreed shifting his head slightly to peer at the lab doors, wishing he could catch a glimpse of Sara, but being afraid of it at the same time.

"I have lived all over the world and I have known thousands of women, over more years than you would likely believe.  They are all the same, and they are all different.  I have not been willing until now to stay anywhere for one in many years – probably more years than you have been alive."

Grissom raised an eyebrow at the last statement.  He couldn't understand why an obviously intelligent, otherwise rational man like Nikolai Comenescu would believe himself to be an creature born from the fears and imaginations of primitive peoples.  But he knew that delusional disorders often affected seemingly sane people who had no other manifestation of mental illness.

"You captured her heart and her mind many years ago.  Why have you not pursued her until now?  You are either a man of curious willpower or incredible stupidity."

"I didn't know she wanted to have anything to do with me until a few months ago.  I thought she was just flirting in a friendly way, like she did the other guys.  It was sheer torture to be around her.  But then, a few months ago, she asked me out and I turned her down.  So, yes, I am a man of curious willpower and incredible stupidity," Grissom agreed.

"Now she had turned you down, I presume," Nikolai added, not tauntingly, but empathetically.

"Yes," Grissom said, dropping his head to look down at an imaginary spot on the ground.

"So, Svengali, how will you capture her heart again?" Nikolai dared him.

"I don't know," Grissom breathed out sullenly, looking back up at the lab through slitted eyes.

"You must woo her," Nikolai coached.  "Say nice things – things that you know to be true, but do not usually tell her.  Surprise her with little things.  A cup of coffee when she is working.  A small memento of some occasion or place that you have been together.  A bouquet of flowers left in her car.  A note or card.  A telephone call to tell her you are thinking of her.  A touch that says love instead of lust."

"I'm not very good at that sort of thing," Grissom admitted.  "I did send her a plant once, but it was because I had made her mad enough to threaten to leave."

Nikolai exhaled sharply, shaking his head in disbelief.  "Maybe it is easier for me because I have been around women very much longer than you have."

"I don't think that's the reason.  I could live a hundred years and still not know what to say or do at any given moment," Grissom admitted.

"I can tell that I have much work to do with you," Nikolai sighed. 

"You might not get the chance," Grissom warned him.

"Oh, I will.  I can be caught or not, at my own discretion.  Your evidence does not impress me.  You do not know where I live, or where I am at any time.  I come and go as I please."

"I could have you arrested right now," Grissom told him.

"How?  Surely you do not think that you could restrain me!"

"I could call the police.  Considering they're only about a few hundred yards from here, it wouldn't be hard for them to catch you." 

"You may try that, if you wish," Nikolai shrugged. 

"What do I do first?" Grissom asked, sighing heavily.

"You apologize to her.  Tell her that you are sorry that you kissed her, but that she is too hard to resist."

"That would sound ridiculous coming from me."

"You would put it into your own words, Svengali," Nikolai chided.  "For you, it would probably be something like, 'I'm sorry. I could not help it'."

"I couldn't help it," Grissom amended.

"Yes, the contractions.  Too much trouble to learn how to use them properly," Nikolai shrugged.

"Okay.  Am I supposed to do this now?  Here at the lab?" Grissom asked doubtfully.

"You do not understand the significance of her being in there, do you?  Svengali, you are the laboratory and the laboratory is you.  If she were rejecting you, she would not be in there," he said, nodding his head towards the building.  "For her, it is a means to be close to you, whether you are there or not.  Do you not understand this?" he asked incredulously.

"I deal in facts, Mr. Comenescu, not symbolism.  And Sara does, too.  I doubt she sees the correlation you draw between me and the lab," Grissom stated.

"Then why is she there all of the time?  Even when you are not."

"She loves her work," Grissom postulated.

"Your work," Nikolai corrected.  "Your work; her work.  Your lab;  her lab.  Your facts;  her facts.  How much more like you must she become before you will accept her?"

"I accept her.  I accepted her before she was a criminalist."

"But you would not let her into your life, no?"

"I did, as much as I felt I could," Grissom said, defending himself.

"So you had her in your life, as much as you wanted, but did she have you in her life?" Nikolai pressed.

"I guess not," Grissom admitted, lowering his head again to study the pavement.  "... other than at work.  And lately, not even that."

"No matter," Nikolai said, waving his hands.  "All of that is past.  She is here now, so she is willing to forgive it.  If she were not, she would have left before now.  She either loves you very much or is also incredibly stupid, like you."

Grissom looked up at him sharply, then allowed a smile to curve his lips.

Nikolai smiled back.  "The point is not to forget the past, but to learn not to repeat it.  When you get to be my age, there are so many things to not repeat that your options become somewhat limited, which is a good thing.  By now, I am less likely to make the same foolish mistakes you have made."

"What if she doesn't let me in her life?" Grissom asked.

"She will.  She wants you, that much is clear.  For some reason, she thinks that she cannot have you, or that you do not want her."

"Because of the rules here at work," Grissom admitted.  "Since she works for me, I'm not allowed to date her.  If I do, she could be reprimanded and I could get fired."

"They value you so little?" Nikolai asked.

"Those are the rules," Grissom shrugged.  "They apply to everyone just the same."

"Dr. Grissom, have you ever exceeded the speed limit?"

"What?  What does that have to do with anything?" Grissom asked, perplexed.

"Please answer," Nikolai bade.

"Of course.  Everyone has," Grissom answered.

"Are they not the rules, too?"

"Yes, but all that'll happen is that I'll get a ticket.  I won't lose my livelihood."

"So it is not a matter of breaking the rules, but of the balance between risk and reward," Nikolai summarized.

"Exactly," Grissom answered before thinking.

"So spending time with someone you love, someone who loves you, is not worth the risk of losing a job?  Are there no other jobs in all of the world?"

"You argue like a woman," Grissom said in frustration.

"Ha!  I take that as a compliment, Dr. Grissom," Nikolai laughed.

Grissom pushed himself upright from the back of the Tahoe, and took a deep breath, steeling himself.

"One thing, Svengali," Nikolai said, turning chillingly serious.  "If you try, things will work out, you will see.  But if you hurt her again, I will know and I will find you.  They can have me locked in solitary confinement, and I will get out.  I will hunt you, and I will find you, no matter where you are.  They will find your bloodless body pinned to a wall like one of your bugs," he warned.

"Your threats don't scare me, Nikolai.  If I hurt her again, I'll deserve it," Grissom said evenly. 

"Then we have an understanding," Nikolai said amicably.  "Why are you out in the parking lot when she is in your laboratory?" Nikolai asked with a grin.

* * * * *

Sara had long since given up on getting any more work done.  No matter what evidence she looked at, she remembered where he was and what he looked like when she collected it.  Her mind would invariably skip forward to the layout room, where he held her, his lips searing the flesh of her neck. 

Time would jerk forward and they would be at breakfast, and she would feel the comfort of hearing him talk to her again.  She'd see his face in the light from the dash of the SUV, a relaxed smile on his face, then the look in his eyes as he turned to her.

She'd feel the warmth of his hand in hers.  She'd remember the feel of his breath on the sensitive skin of her face.  Then she'd feel the mind-numbing shock of his lips on hers.

Past memories of being close and new memories of being closer still were brought randomly to her mind in a swirling Brownian motion.  She purposefully tried to bring to mind the times he rebuffed her, insulted her or merely ignored her.  But she couldn't hold them long when the pain of them made her let go, as if she were trying to hold hot metal.

She was sitting in front of her open locker, peering inside at nothing, using it as a backdrop for her thoughts.  She stiffened when the door opened, knowing it was him.  She realized she'd made a tactical blunder, retreating to a room with only one exit, unless she was willing to climb out a window.

Not surprisingly, he didn't say anything.  He rarely said anything, unless it was about work, or unless she forced him to.  She could hear his shoes on the tile as he slowly approached her. 

He sat down next to her, crossing his feet at the ankles and laying his hands in his lap.  With his head hanging, it was an obviously defeated posture, and it only made her feel worse.

"I'm sorry," he sighed.  "I didn't mean to upset you."  He nervously rubbed the thumb from one hand across the rough palm of his other.

"You must think I'm a tease.  Flirt with you for years, then shut you down the minute you act interested."

"No, I don't think that.  I know why you did what you did," he said, his head bobbing agreement, though it never raised more than an inch.

"I guess I was still thinking like a kid, never considering the consequences.  It never entered my mind that anything bad could come of it – certainly nothing worse than hard feelings if it didn't work out.  But I figured we'd be able to work that out, if it happened."

"Wasn't it a risk for you to leave everything and everybody in San Francisco and move out here?"

"Yeah, I obviously didn't think that through very well," Sara sighed.

"I don't know.  Apart from any personal motives, it was a good professional move," Grissom said, trying to be supportive.

"Yeah, but that wasn't what I was thinking about," she said, lowering her chin into her palms, her elbows propped on her knees.

"Okay, so you had another motive.  And I know it took longer than you wanted it to, but I finally get it.  That motive could still work out, too," he said nervously, feeling like she must have felt more than once – every time she made some gesture towards him, only to be ignored or worse.

"Grissom, that's a fantasy.  It's a nice fantasy, and one I've had for a long time, but it's still a fantasy.  We both know the reality.  We can't see each other.  Period.  Why pretend we can?" she asked.

"We have to try, Sara," he said, moving off the bench to crouch in front of her, trying to get her to look at him. He laid his hands on her thighs, just above the bend in her knees.   "We've both been through too much to just drop it without trying." 

"It's too dangerous," she said, finally lifting her eyes to look at his briefly before she let them roll back down.

"We'll be careful," he said quietly, bending down and tilting his head, trying to see her face.

"What if ..." she began.

"I'm tired of 'what ifs'.  I've been going through all the 'what ifs' for years now.  Right now, the only 'what ifs' that bother me is what if I never get to see you again?  What if I never get to kiss you again?"

* * * * *

The sun was up, but he was hiding in a darkened corner near the dumpsters, waiting with the patience he'd developed over the years, lying in wait for his prey.  He watched each of them walk out of the building, Grissom leaving a minute or two before Sara. 

He decided to follow Sara.  If the fool didn't want her, he would be there to pick up the pieces.

Though she didn't know it, he'd followed her home several times – not to stalk her, but to make sure she made it home safely.  Once she was inside her door, he'd say a silent goodbye and leave. 

This wasn't the way to her apartment, Nikolai realized, and he became curious.  She parked on the street outside another complex, walked slowly up the stairs, and knocked on the door. 

Nikolai raised his eyebrows in surprise when Grissom answered the door, holding out a hand to lead her in.  She seemed hesitant at first, but she finally took his hand and disappeared into the townhouse.

"Perhaps you are not such a fool after all, Svengali," Nikolai said, cruising past her car to head home.

* * * * *

"Would you like something to drink?" Grissom asked amiably.

"No, thank you," Nikolai answered politely, sitting at the desk in the interrogation room.  Brass was sitting to his right, quietly, to this point.  Grissom sat across from Nikolai, a file splayed out in front of him.

"Mr. Comenescu, you are not technically under arrest, but you still have the right to have an attorney present.  You were read your rights, correct?" Brass asked, for the record.

"Yes, I was told my rights."

"Do you understand your rights?" Brass asked.

"Yes.  I do.  I do not require an attorney.  However, do I still get to place a phone call?"

"Yes.  You're not under arrest," Brass answered.  "Do you want to make a call now?"

"Not at the moment.  Perhaps later," he said evenly.

"Mr. Comenescu, we're investigating the deaths of four women who were attacked and exsanguinated by someone calling himself 'Nosferatu'," Grissom began, as though they had never spoken of it before.

Nikolai nodded and listened intently, his black eyes fixed on Grissom, but with none of the malice Grissom had seen in them a few times before.

"You are familiar with the term 'Nosferatu'?" Grissom asked.

"Of course.  There are legends of the Undead all over the world, but I am most familiar with the Eastern European version," he answered.

"Mr. Comenescu, are you Nosferatu?" Grissom asked abruptly, but not harshly.

"Do you mean the suspect Nosferatu, or do you mean the mythical creature?" Nikolai asked.

"Both.  Either," Brass answered, rocking his hand back and forth.

Nikolai did not speak, but he wasn't being difficult.  He knew that he could never make them understand.

"Humans cannot survive on blood, Mr. Comenescu.  It's impossible.  We don't have the enzymes to properly digest it or draw the nutrients out of it.  Even if it were to be administered intravenously, it wouldn't sustain us," Grissom exposited.

"That is true of humans.  It is not true of Nosferatu," Nikolai answered.  "Your laboratory did many blood tests and DNA tests on me.  Did you confirm that I am a perfectly normal human being with all the same enzymes of any other human, and no others?"

"No we could not positively confirm that you have the typical serological profile.  There were some unusual enzymes present in your blood, but they could have gotten there other ways."

"Which enzymes did you find, and what are their purpose?" Nikolai pressed.

"We found several enzymes called serine proteases, that can, among other things, digest blood and blood products.  Humans have some, to help dissolve blood clots, for example.  You have some that are more typical of animals and some insects.  You also have an unusual enzyme normally found in certain bats, called draculin.  It's an anticoagulant."

"What kind of bats?" Nikolai asked, unable to suppress a grin.

"Desmodus rotundus," Grissom answered.

"Common name?" Nikolai prodded.

Sighing, Grissom answered.  "Vampire bats."

"I can see that you are skeptical.  You think that Nosferatu are supernatural beings, and therefore can't exist.  The legend and the reality are very different from each other."

"How so?" Brass asked.

"Nosferatu are not shape-shifters.  They are not killed by sunlight, holy water, garlic or anything like that.  They do not have fangs.  They are not supernatural, only different," he explained.

"In the absence of empirical evidence, I find it difficult to believe in vampires," Grissom stated.

"You ignore your own laboratory's evidence.  But it is of no matter, Dr. Grissom.  The end result would be the same, regardless of whether I am a vampire or a homicidal maniac.  Your belief or lack thereof does not change anything.  But consider this:  how many animals exist on earth that are comprised of only one species?"

"Only one that I know of – humans," Grissom answered.

"How many species of insects are there?" Nikolai asked the entomologist.

"Millions."

"What are the chances that evolution would create a multitude of species of other animals, but only one human species?"

"Statistically, it's difficult to justify only one human species," Grissom agreed.  "Nonetheless, it's all that we've catalogued."

"Could it be because when others are found, they are killed before they can be properly identified?" Nikolai suggested.

"Mr. Comenescu, are you Nosferatu?" Brass asked again, feeling the esoteric conversation was getting them nowhere.

"May I have that phone call now?" he asked.

"Certainly," Brass said.  "You can use the phone on the desk."

"Dr. Grissom, would you please dial her number?" Nikolai asked. 

Brass looked questioningly at Grissom, who grabbed the phone and began punching in numbers.  When she answered, Grissom said, "Mr. Comenescu wants to talk to you.  Is that okay?"

"How is he?" Sara asked.

"Holding up well," Grissom said.

Grissom handed the phone to Nikolai, who held it until Grissom and Brass excused themselves.  He may have known that they would still be watching and listening, but he still had the sense of privacy.

"Sara?  It's Nikolai."

"Hello, Nikolai," she said hesitantly.

"It's wonderful to hear your voice.  Unfortunately, it would appear that I will be unable to call on you anymore," he said, disappointment carrying through his words.

Brass looked over at Grissom, who kept his face impassively forward to the glass.

"I suppose you know why," he said.  "I don't blame you.  I just wanted to make sure you knew that.  I could never blame you.  It's not your fault that I am what I am, that I do what I have to do, that they do what they have to do."

"I don't know how to help, Nikolai," Sara said sadly.

"There was nothing you could do.  I should have left, moved on somewhere else for a while, like I usually do.  But something held me here."  He paused for a moment, continuing, "You know that I would never have hurt you, do you not?"

"I know that.  I've known that all along," she answered, feeling the words hitch in her throat.

"We did not have enough time to get to know one another very well, but I think I could easily have fallen in love with you.  Maybe one day you could have fallen in love with me," he said, emboldened by knowing he'd never have another chance to say it.

Sara was silent, not knowing what to say.  Nikolai had never been anything but kind to her, but her heart belonged to another man.

"It is best this way.  I would have to leave or die sooner or later.  I could not ask you to live that way.  I will miss you, Sara," he said.  "You are unlike any woman I have ever known, and I have lived all over the world."

"I'll miss you, too, Nikolai.  You were a good friend.  Take care," she said, hanging up the phone, unable to bear the conflicting feelings any longer.  She had never met him as Nosferatu, and it seemed that Nikolai didn't deserve his fate, the fate that she brought on him in order to bring Nosferatu to justice.

Nikolai slowly replaced the phone, a wistful smile still on his face as Brass and Grissom returned.

"I do not want her involved in what is going to happen, for her own peace of mind.  Would a full confession keep her out of this?"

"Yes.  If you confess and plead guilty at the arraignment, there won't be a trial," Brass answered.  The judge will sentence you, but he'll require the evidence and your statement so that he'll feel confident in his ruling.  He may require a forensic psychologist to examine you," Brass warned.

"Let us get that all done in advance," Nikolai affirmed.  "I will make my confession and you can arrange for me to see a forensic psychologist.  I want this over as soon as possible.  You do not know what it is like to be seen as evil merely because you are different.  I am grateful that we are not really immortal.  At this point, I welcome an end to it all," he said with resignation, but not gloomily.  It was as if a burden had been lifted.

After Nikolai confessed in great enough detail to suspend any doubt as to his guilt, Brass formally arrested him on four counts of murder in the first degree, handcuffing him as he stood facing Grissom.

Grissom eyed Nikolai, a question formulating on his tongue.  "Mr. Comenescu, why did you write 'Nosferatu' at the first scene?  Did you want us to catch you?  Was it a statement that vampires exist?  What was the point?"

Nikolai smiled.  "Both, I suppose.  I never asked to be the way I am.  I wanted people to know why these innocent people had to die.  Also, I wanted to warn them.  Whether I am as I say I am, or whether I am a maniac, either way I wanted to give the prey fair warning."

"May I ask another question?" Grissom said.

"Certainly."

"You worked at a blood bank.  Why did you need to kill anyone?"

"Two reasons.  First of all, one can only steal so much blood before it is noticed.  I did use all that I could, or you would have likely had many more bodies.  Second, live blood is better than dead blood – more nutritious – like the difference between fresh food and canned food, I suppose."  Nikolai managed to make the gruesome conversation sound as innocuous as a cooking show on cable.

"You drank what you could at the scene and stored the rest," Grissom stated more than asked.

"Yes, all that I could gather in a reasonable amount of time.  You will find the remainder in the refrigerator in my apartment.  You may want that as evidence," he suggested.

Grissom nodded, all of the loose ends that had plagued him tied up. 

"I would not have hurt her," Nikolai assured Grissom.  "I would sooner die," he swore solemnly.

Grissom carefully considered the man standing in front of him.  Nikolai had opened himself up to Sara, forfeiting his life in the process.  Still, he didn't seem to regret it. 

Nikolai asked Brass if he could have a moment alone with Grissom, assuring him that Grissom would be safe with him handcuffed.  Brass looked at Grissom, then nodded his consent, and left the room.

"Have you told her you love her yet?" Nikolai asked plainly.

"No, not yet," Grissom admitted.

"Why not?" Nikolai asked.

"With everything that's being going on, there just hasn't been a time that seemed right."

"You must tell her soon."

"I will, when the time is right," Grissom promised.

"Soon," Nikolai said more firmly.

"I'm doing the best I can, Nikolai," Grissom said a little defensively.

"I would not have hurt her.  Will you hurt her?" Nikolai asked.

"I already have, several times, as you know," Grissom sighed, rubbing his forehead.

"I still do not understand.  Why would you hurt her, if you love her?" Nikolai asked, amazed.

"I don't know.  It all seemed like such a gamble."

Nikolai grinned at Grissom.  "She is worth it, no?  Just to see that smile."

"She is worth it, yes, just to see that smile," Grissom answered, the thought bringing a smile to his own lips.

Brass knocked on the door and entered with an officer, ready to escort Nikolai to booking. 

"You'll pardon me for not shaking your hand," Nikolai said, jingling the cuffs behind his back. 

The two men nodded their regards, knowing that they had an uncommon bond through loving Sara.

* * * * *

"How are you doing?" Sara asked over the telephone handset.  It was distracting to see him through Plexiglas and have to talk to him over a phone, even though they were less than three feet apart.

"As well as can be expected," Nikolai told her.

"They say you're on a hunger strike," she said, concerned.

Nikolai laughed heartily, and said, "They do not serve what I eat in the cafeteria, Sara."

"How long can you go without eating?" she asked, still unsure of how much she believed.

"How long can you go without eating?" he asked back.

"Gandhi fasted a month.  Jesus fasted forty days.  The Rule of Threes says the average person can go three weeks without eating.  I doubt I'd make it that long," she replied. 

"Nor will I," he said.  "I will start to get hungry in a few days.  But unlike you, the hunger will not pass;  it will intensify until I feed."

"I'm so sorry, Nikolai," she said, putting her hand to the glass. 

"It is not your fault, Sara," he said.  "By the way, you look a little tired.  Lovely, but tired.  You should rest more."

"Yeah, that's what my boss always tells me," she said, nodding.  "The 'rest more' part, not the 'lovely' part," she clarified.

"That's because he worries about you," Nikolai told her.

"He has no reason to worry about me," she retorted.

"He has a very good reason to worry about you.  He loves you.  He told me so himself," Nikolai stated.

Sara sat speechless.  She was sitting in front of a man who treated her like a princess, but was going to be behind bars for the rest of his life in no small part because of her.  He was telling her that another man loves her, and sounding happy about it.

"Do you love him?" Nikolai asked softly, a smile softening his ebony eyes.

"Yes," she answered honestly. "I always have."

"He told me that he has hurt you several times."

"He told you that?" she asked, surprised.

"Yes.  He seemed very contrite," Nikolai allowed.

"He's trying to make up for it," she said.

"I hope he can."

"I've got to go now, Nikolai, but I'll come see you again," she promised.

"Good-bye, Sara.  I hope you have a long and wonderful life, filled with love and many glorious adventures," he said, putting his hand to the glass again.

She got up and turned away quickly, not wanting to burden him with the tears her guilt brought her.  Even after she had provided the evidence to have him arrested, he was still kind to her. 

She still couldn't understand how he could be the killer, even though she accepted that he was.  Justice for the victims was served;  there would be no way to achieve justice for Nikolai – he was either mad or a victim of genetics.

* * * * *

Sara walked out into the harsh Nevada sun that was lying in wait outside of the building housing the Clark County Jail.  She quickly swiped at her cheeks and sniffed, shoving her sunglasses on. 

"Are you okay, Sara?" she heard from slightly behind her.  She turned to see Grissom leaned up against the brick front of the building.

"I'm fine.  What are you doing here?" she asked.

Grissom shrugged.  "I thought you might want some company.  But if you don't, that's okay, too," he offered.

"I don't know what I want right now, Grissom," she said glumly.  "Are you mad at me for coming here?" she asked anxiously.

"No, of course not.  Let me drive you home."

"I don't want to go home to an empty apartment.  All I'll do is think, and I don't want to think about all this."

"Come home with me," he suggested.

"I don't think I'd be very good company, " she said, smiling wanly.

"You don't have to entertain me," he said, grasping her elbow to lead her to his car.

The ride to his house was silent, with Grissom mentally running through everything he could think of to say, wanting desperately to make her feel better.

As soon as they entered his townhouse, Grissom turned and took her into his arms, holding her gently.  Like the young hiker with his girlfriend, it was the only thing he could think to do.

After a moment, she broke away, smiling gratefully at him.  She made her way to the couch, sitting down heavily.  Grissom brought over two bottles of beer, setting them down on the coffee table before taking his place beside her.

Sara lifted her bottle to her lips, closing her eyes to take in a long swig of the smooth, slightly bitter brew.  Lowering it, she picked at the label with her other hand, gathering her thoughts. 

"Grissom, Nikolai said some things that I wanted to ask you about."

"Okay," he replied, picking up his own bottle.

"He said that you told him that you, um, love me."

"Yes, I did."

"When was that?" she asked.

Grissom hadn't told her about his conversation with Nikolai in the parking lot.  There never seemed a good time to bring it up, and he certainly didn't want to tell her every detail.

"About a week ago.  The morning that I first kissed you, in the Tahoe."

"After I went into the lab?"

"Yes.  He was waiting for me, evidently.  We talked a while in the parking lot."

"What did he say?" she asked, peeling small shreds of paper from the bottle's label.

"Mostly we talked about you.  In essence, he wanted to know my intentions," Grissom told her, still hoping he wouldn't have to do into too much detail.

"So you told him you love me," she repeated.

"Yes."

"Do you think he should have heard it before I did?" she asked, not as angrily as Grissom might have expected.

"No, but he asked.  If you had ever asked, I would have told you, too," he said, realizing how idiotic that must have sounded to her.

"He also said that you told him that you'd hurt me," she said quietly.

"Yes, I did tell him that," Grissom admitted, the mere thought bringing back twinges of guilt.

"Why?"

"It sort of came up in the conversation.  He was asking why we weren't already seeing each other.  I told him that it was my fault, that I'd hurt you several times."

"Sounds like a pretty open conversation to have with someone you hardly knew."

"It was.  But there was something about the way he asked questions that made it easy to answer them.  I wasn't the only one doing the talking, though."

"Really?  What was he saying?"

"He was trying to tell me how to woo you," Grissom said, smiling weakly.

"Did it help?" she asked, returning the small smile.

"Not really.  I'm not good at that sort of thing.  I think I exasperated him."

"I know the feeling," she said.

"Mine or his?"

"His.  The exasperation."

"Oh," Grissom said, taking a chug of his beer to take the place of talking.

"Must have done some good.  I'm here at your house, aren't I?" she said lightly, wanting to relieve the tension that was building.

"Yes.  Yes, you are," he nodded.

"Do you think you'll ever talk to me as openly as you talked to him?"

"I'll try.  But you'll have to help.  You need to ask questions.  I'm not good at just saying things, but I can try to answer your questions."

"Did you mean what you told him?  Do you ... um ... care ... for me?" she asked.

"Yes, I meant what I said," he answered circuitously.

"You can tell him, but you can't say it to me?" Sara asked, fixing him.

"He asked me directly.  I said 'yes'," Grissom said nervously.  He knew she wanted him to just say it, but he found it uncomfortable, especially during an otherwise tense discussion.  He wanted the first time he said it to be more meaningful to them both. 

It wasn't until the silence had stretched on for a couple of minutes that he realized that he should tell her why he wasn't saying it.

"Sara ..." he began, then stopped to clear his throat.  "It's not that I don't want to say it.  I just want the first time to be special, just like the first time for everything else we do."

She had been looking at him before he spoke, trying to be open and calm, but the hurt showing in her eyes.  But hearing his explanation, she looked down with a smile, the relief palpable.

Grissom quietly exhaled, allowing his own tension to slowly dissipate.

He reached over to slide his arm behind her, slowly pulling her into his side.  This time the silence between then was comfortable, their physical closeness communicating all that needed to be said.

* * * * *

Walking up to the window, Grissom began to empty his pockets into an large manila envelope. 

"I'm here to see Nikolai Comenescu," Grissom said, signing his name to the visitors log.

After a few keystrokes, the guard looked up.  "I'm sorry, he can't have visitors."

"Why not?" Grissom asked authoritatively.

"Because he's in solitary confinement until his transfer," the guard answered.

Showing his ID badge to the guard, he explained that he wanted to see Comenescu to follow up on his interrogation.  The guard turned and made a phone call.  After a moment, he turned back around to face Grissom. 

"Someone will be down in a moment to escort you to the Warden's office.  You'll need to leave your sidearm here."

Grissom removed his pistol and ejected the clip, handing both over to the guard, who put it in with Grissom's other belongings in the envelope.

A short, stout young lady approached Grissom, her face set in the same serious expression that seemed endemic to jails and prison.  Grissom was fascinated at how quickly and smoothly she moved, considering her girth and her short legs.

"Follow me," she said officiously, turning abruptly to lead Grissom to the Warden's office.

After a brief wait, he was allowed into the Warden's inner sanctum.  The office was more spartan than his own, but appeared to be decorated in the same style, though not with the same accessories.  There were books and papers stacked everywhere, and his in-box was overflowing.  Stacks of files littered his desk.

"Gil Grissom," he said, holding out his hand to the Warden.

"Bud Sanders," he countered, leaning across his desk to take Grissom's hand.  He waved towards a chair, then sat back down heavily in his own.

"Mr. Grissom, I understand you want to visit one of our prisoners who's in solitary confinement."

"Yes.  Nikolai Comenescu."

"May I ask why?"

"I'm the lead criminalist on his case.  I want to follow up on our last interrogation."

"Oh, I see.  Well, that's going to be difficult.  You see, Mr. Comenescu is confined to the hospital ward, in solitary confinement.  He can't have any visitors right now.  He's not conscious."

"What happened to him?" Grissom demanded.

"He attacked another inmate.  Damn near ripped his throat out.  It took four guards to pull him off and subdue him.  He didn't give up easily."

"So he was 'subdued' badly enough to be unconscious?"

"Not really.  No broken bones or internal injuries.  He seemed fine when we first put him in solitary.  But when he was checked the next morning, he was unconscious."

"Has he been seen by a doctor?"

"Of course.  They haven't found anything wrong with him, so they're doing a lot of tests.  That's all I know."

"That could be interesting," Grissom mumbled, rising to his feet.  "I won't take up any more of your time, Mr. Sanders.  I'll be calling to check on Mr. Comenescu's condition, if I might."

"Of course," Sanders said, escorting Grissom to the door.

Grissom exhaled sharply as soon as the door was closed.  He didn't know how he was going to explain all of this to Sara, especially since he knew so little to begin with.  He knew that it wasn't Comenescu's intention, but it seemed like he was always finding a way to come between them ... when he wasn't pushing them together.

* * * * *

"Is he going to be okay?" Sara asked, wide-eyed with shock.

"I don't know," Grissom shrugged.

"And you just walked out?  'Oh, he's been beaten unconscious, thrown into solitary, and no-one can see him? Oh, okay'," she mocked accusingly.

Grissom shot her a glare that hovered between anger and pain, so intense that she looked away.

"He obviously either wasn't going to tell me more, or didn't know more," Grissom countered when he felt he could speak without bitterness.

"Now what happens?" Sara asked, her tone more conciliatory.

"I've already called Brass and the District Attorney.  They're more likely to get the full story on what precipitated the altercation.  Then I spoke to Al about getting in touch with the doctor on staff there.  I really don't know what else to do."

"You've already done more than most people would have done.  How many men would go through this much trouble for the serial killer their girlfriend had gone out with?" she said, shaking her head in amazement once she had taken the time to think about what he'd done for her.  He didn't have to check on Nikolai in jail; he didn't have to talk to the Warden; and he didn't have to call in favors to get the real story for her.

For a man who had a reputation as being uncaring, she was sometimes stunned at the empathy he showed her.  He always seemed to be there at her lowest points.  While his advice at those times often angered her, she had to admit that he was usually right, and more importantly, he was always gentle and always available during those crises. 

They seemed to be the few times he had connected to her on some emotional level, showing he cared.  She regretted that she hadn't realized all that when it was happening.  She had let her own feelings get in the way of seeing him for who he was showing himself to be.

"I felt like it was the least I could do," Grissom said, feeling his way through the words like they were landmines.  "If it hadn't been for him, you wouldn't be here right now."

"Yes, I would have.  All you ever had to do was say the word," she said softly, not wanting it to be an accusation as much as an affirmation that she had never truly given up on him, despite her best efforts to do just that.

"I guess I didn't know what the word was," he said with a self-deprecating chuckle.

"It was 'yes'," she answered.

Cocooning her in his arms, he bent down to whisper in her ear, his breath playing in her hair.  "If I asked you not to go home today, to stay here with me, would you do it?"

It was hard for her to gather the composure to talk.  His cheek was still brushing hers, and her lips seemed to have a will of their own, demanding she let them taste him.

"I've got to go.  It's getting late, and I bet you haven't rested since yesterday morning," she said shakily, pulling back from him.

"You can sleep here," he breathed rather than spoke, pulling her back to him.  "Don't go."

"I have to before ...  I have to or else ...," she stuttered, pushing back, but unable to look into his eyes, afraid that she'd lose all her willpower.

"Sleep with me," he said, stroking her arm, but not forcing her back to him.

"No," she said.

"Sleep with me," he repeated, his hand straying up to her neck.

"I can't," she said, shaking her head.

"Sleep with me."

"Do I have to tell you the story of the boulder?" she asked, smiling wanly at him.  "If I get into that bed with you, next thing you know, the boulder will be at the bottom of the hill."

"I'm counting on that," he smiled.  "Sleep with me."

"You're relentless," she laughed.

"I had a good role model," he teased.  "Sleep with me."

"Grissom, nothing's happened yet that could really hurt you.  A few breakfasts, a few hugs, a few kisses.  But once you ... once we ..."

"Sleep with me," he murmured, pulling gently at her neck, feeling her resistance faltering.

"The risk ..." were the only words she got out before his lips claimed hers, softly at first, like the feel of the desert breeze on her skin.

"Is not as great as the reward," he whispered before pulling her in tightly to himself, allowing the passion he'd been holding back to flow through the connection at their lips.

* * * * *

Lifting her head up off the pillow to look over Grissom's shoulder at the clock, she could see that they'd been sleeping five hours.  There were two more hours until shift started, and she knew he'd want to be early, as usual.  She reasoned that, like most men, Grissom wouldn't need much time to get ready, so he could sleep a while longer. 

She didn't usually take much time, either, but she figured she should get started soon to make sure there was plenty of hot water again when he took his shower.  Sara started to ease out of bed just as Grissom rolled over to his side, facing her. 

She tried to remember if she'd ever seen him look like this peaceful before.  With his tousled hair and the angelic face that only sleep brings, he looked completely different from the serious scientist everyone was accustomed to seeing.

She wanted to touch his face, his hair, but she resisted.  Not only did she want him to be able to rest longer, but she had to admit that she was afraid.  She'd let things go too far, and she dreaded the moment he awoke, expecting things to be at the least awkward.  At worst, she feared that he'd regret it, if not now, then later when they went back to work.

As she was looking at him, trying to burn the image into her memory for all time, his eyes fluttered open for a second before closing again.  A slight smile pulled at one side of his mouth and he reached out his arm to drape over her waist. 

Sara felt many of her fears evaporate as a sound halfway between a sigh and a purr rumbled in his throat and he pulled her closer to him, his smile widening.  Since he was already awake, she succumbed to the temptation and began to allow her fingers to lightly play across his face and up into his hair.

A lump formed in her throat and she swallowed hard to push it down.  When it got to her stomach, it seemed to evanesce into a warmth that spread all over her body.  It frightened her to feel this way about him;  considering his past behavior, there was too much risk in allowing herself to love him this much.

She thought about their lovemaking that afternoon, which hadn't been at all what she had expected.  Before it even began, she had been making excuses and allowances:  he was older and emotionally unavailable, she was upset about Nikolai, he may or may not have been jealous of that, she was nervous, neither of them had been with anyone sexually in a long time, neither of them were all that experienced.  There was every reason to expect it to be a disaster at worst, and over very soon at best. 

She had to admit that she was surprised by his attentiveness and gentleness.  He managed to soon put her at ease, and despite the urgency of their desire, he didn't rush through the foreplay, seeming to deem it as much a part of the lovemaking as their eventual union was.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked, lazily lifting his lids to look into her eyes.

"I'm thinking about you," she answered, her perambulating fingers taking the opportunity to brush lightly over his lips.

When her fingers had moved on, freeing his lips to speak, he moved his hand up her body until it rested on her cheek. 

"Sara ...," he began.  He took a breath and held it for a moment, before exhaling.  "I love you."

* * * * *

The embrace and kiss that ensued from Grissom's admission was interrupted by the insistent ringing of Grissom's cell phone.  Growling, he turned to the bedside table to snatch it up and answer sharply.

"Is Sara there with you?" Catherine asked, equally abruptly.

"Why would you ask that?" Grissom countered.

"Cut the crap.  Just tell me if she's there.  It's important," Catherine barked out.

"Yes.  Why?" Grissom asked, sitting up and mouthing 'Catherine' to Sara.

"Comenescu escaped during transport.  Apparently he needed tests or treatment or something that they couldn't do at the jail, so they were taking him to the hospital.  He overpowered the guard and jumped out of the vehicle while it was still moving.  Brass has put out an APB, but no luck."

"And you think ..." Grissom began, bounding from the bed and pulling on his clothes, the small cell phone tucked precariously between his shoulder and ear.

"I think you and Sara should know, considering you did the most to put him in jail," Catherine interrupted.

"Okay.  We're probably fine here.  He doesn't know where I live," Grissom assured her. 

Hearing only his end of the conversation, and seeing the concern that he tried to hide, Sara increased her pace, rushing around to collect her clothes, yanking each item on as she found it.

"Gil, he's a hunter.  If he wants to find you, he will.  You're safer at the lab."

"You're probably right.  What about you?"

"We're already on our way in."

"We?" Grissom asked.

"I'm bringing Lindsey with me."

"Good.  We'll see you shortly," he said, hanging up.

"What's going on?" Sara asked as soon as he was off the phone.

"Probably nothing for you to be worried about," Grissom said hopefully.  "Nikolai's escaped."

"What!  How?"

"Transporting him to the hospital," Grissom answered. 

"If he's smart, he'll run," she suggested as they made their way towards the door, still buttoning, tieing and zipping on the way.

"He won't leave without trying to see you," Grissom returned.  "If for no other reason than to say goodbye."

"He doesn't know where I am," Sara said confidently.  "Besides, he'd probably call instead.  It's safer," she said, looking at the display on her cell phone.  "Damn!" she said, shoving it into her purse.

"What is it?" Grissom asked.

"Battery's dead.  I haven't been home to charge it," she shrugged. 

"That explains why Catherine couldn't get you," Grissom said, opening the door and peering outside cautiously before stepping through.  From the vantage point of the top of the staircase, he surveyed the street both directions before leading Sara down the steps.

"We'll take my car," Grissom said, unlocking the door on her side first.

"Uh, this could get uncomfortable," Sara warned as he sat in the driver's seat and locked all the doors.

Grissom turned to her, asking for clarification with his expression.

"I'm wearing the same clothes as I wore last night, I haven't bathed, and you're driving me to work.  These people aren't idiots, Grissom.  They look for clues for a living.  Not to mention the fact that Catherine knows I was with you."

"Do you have a change of clothes at the lab?" Grissom asked, pulling out onto the street, relieved to be moving.

"Yeah.  As long as we're the first ones there, it's cool," she said, nodding her reassurances to herself.

Grissom pulled the ringing cell phone up to his ear, expecting Catherine to be hounding him about not being at the lab already, though it had been less than 10 minutes since she called.

"Where are you going in such a hurry?"  Nikolai asked;  his deep, smooth voice was calm, almost bemused.

"I heard that you tired of the county's hospitality," Grissom said instead of answering.  He looked over at Sara and nodded.  She held out her hand for the phone, but he shook his head.

"I do not enjoy the cuisine they offer," he laughed.

"You do have rather refined tastes," Grissom returned.

"That I do.  Speaking of which, how is Sara?"

"She's fine," Grissom answered quickly.

"May I speak with her?"

"I'd rather you not.  You'll just upset her," Grissom said, looking in the rearview mirror to try to see if they were being followed.

"Perhaps I can persuade you to change your mind a bit later."

"Possibly, though I doubt it."

"So, Svengali, considering the fact that you and Sara have been at your house for several hours that I know of, and left together, I assume you have taken my advice and shown her that you love her."

"Yes.  Yes, I have," Grissom agreed.

"But that is just doing what is natural between a man and a woman.  The important question is, have you told her you love her?  That would be much more difficult for you."

"Yes, I did."

"And she was happy?"

"Yes, she seemed to be."

"If you will let me talk to her, to be sure you are not lying to me, I will leave and not bother either of you again."

Grissom sighed and looked over at Sara, the indecision written all over his face.  Again, she held out her hand, this time smiling her assurances to him.  Reluctantly, he handed her the phone.

"Nikolai?" she asked softly.

"Sara, my sweet, I have missed you."

"I'm glad you're feeling better," she said, avoiding the usual reply.

"I am, thank you.  I will be leaving soon, so I wanted to say goodbye to you."

"Where will you be going?"

Nikolai laughed.  "Sara, I do not think it wise to share my travel itinerary with you."

"Can't blame a girl for trying," she chuckled.

"I must know something before I go.  Did he tell you that he loves you?"

"Yes, he did," she answered, turning to smile at Grissom, reaching across the space between them to put her hand on his shoulder.

"Did he show you?"

"Yes," she whispered, a little embarrassed by the question, but knowing it was important to answer.

"Good.  I can feel confident to leave you in his care then?"

"Yes, Nikolai.  I'll be fine," she answered, trying not to instinctively react to the assertion that she needed caretaking.

"He surprised me, your Dr. Grissom.  I knew that he loved you, but I did not know if he would ever admit it, especially to you.  He is a strange one."

"Yes, he is," she laughed. 

"But you love him, no?"

"Yes, Nikolai, I love him," she said fervently, squeezing Grissom's shoulder when she saw him turn to her from the corner of her eye.

"I would have treated you better," Nikolai said.

"Probably so," she agreed.

"But he would always have your heart."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because he captured it a long time ago, and hasn't let go.  It's his for as long as he wants it."

"I wish you both a long life, so that you may enjoy your love for many years."

"Thank you, Nikolai.  Goodbye."

"Goodbye, Sara.  Allow me to say goodbye to your Dr. Grissom."

"Yes, Nikolai?" Grissom said.

"I wanted to say farewell to you, Svengali.  I rarely return to any place once I leave, but I may pass through here again, to see how you doing.  If you are not good to her, I will steal her heart and take her away from you."

Grissom huffed out a gentle laugh.  "I don't think that's going to happen, but you're welcome to try!"

"By the way, did you ever get all the results back from the tests you ran on me?"

"Yes," Grissom answered.

"And?"

"You are definitely an unusual man," Grissom laughed.

"But you will not admit that I am a vampire?"

"I can neither prove nor disprove it."

"Am I human?"

"I can neither prove nor disprove it."

"Do I have the proper body chemistry to be able to digest blood?"

"Yes, it appears so."

"Do I ingest blood?"

"It would seem so, though I've never witnessed it."

"Dr. Grissom, what do you call a man who is like a human, but not exactly, who ingests only blood, and is able to digest it?"

"An unusual man," Grissom answered.

Nikolai laughed.  "Well, Dr. Grissom, considering it took you many years to admit the truth about your feelings for Sara, I should not be surprised that you will not admit that I am a vampire, despite all the evidence."

"Give me a few years to think about it," Grissom said, turning to wink at Sara.