As the sun was nearing the highest part of the crystal blue sky on a warm, spring day in Nevada, a loud explosion ripped through the otherwise peaceful day. The sound of sirens began to fill the city and slowly grew to a deafening roar. At the scene of the explosion, pandemonium had broken loose as bodies lay on the ground, some dead, some severely injured. Panicked people ran through the streets, seeking out a safe haven from the smoke and flames that filled the air.

Gil Grissom had been knocked off his feet when the explosion occurred, sadly not the first time it had happened in his life. He had picked himself up, quickly dusting himself off and mentally checking to see if he was injured. After discovering he was more or less okay, he began to scan the masses of running people for his fellow CSIs. The entire graveyard shift was somewhere in the ensuing chaos of this explosion. At the moment, he didn’t even care what had caused the explosion; he was worried that Sara Sidle, Greg Sanders and Nick Stokes had been very near the apparent center of it. Catherine Willows and Warrick Brown should be somewhere near himself, but he was not seeing them.

After a few minutes of searching, Catherine came running up to her boss, “Grissom! Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he nodded, “are you okay?”

“More or less,” she said.

“Where’s Warrick, I thought he was with you?” Grissom asked.

“He was, but I sent him over to help out everyone else. Gris, I think they’re all in serious trouble,” Catherine’s eyes were filled with worry.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he sighed.

The two seemed to be the only ones in the general vicinity not running away from the area. They stood silently for a moment, watching the black smoke pouring up towards the sky, knowing their friends were possibly dead. They could hear sirens in the distance, but there looked to be a fair amount of debris blocking the roads that would have to be moved out before the fire trucks could move in close enough.

“We can’t just stand around waiting,” Catherine started, unsure of how to finish her sentence.

“I know,” Grissom agreed, “but what do we do?”

“I guess we have to go see if we can find them,” she said, uncertainly.

“A few minutes can be the difference between life and death,” he affirmed, “let’s go.”

“Wait a second,” she grabbed his arm and dragged him towards one of their SUVs.

He was about to ask what she was doing, when she stepped back holding a flashlight and a pair of masks, “I know they aren’t the right kind, but it’s all we’ve got on us, no sense inhaling smoke unnecessarily.”

The pair of CSIs slipped on the white masks and began walking into the chaotic scene before them. As they skirted the smoking shell of a car, a form came running toward them with a jacket over their head.

“Whoa, slow down,” Grissom reached out to stop the person.

“Grissom!” Greg pulled the jacket away to reveal his face.

“Greg, what happened to you?” Catherine gasped at the sight of his clearly burnt hands.

“We were caught in the explosion,” he coughed, “Sara’s trapped behind some rubble. Nick and Warrick are trying to get her out, but they need help. Come on, I’ll show you.”

The pair of older CSIs took off running behind the youngest CSI on the nightshift. As they got closer to the building which was still in flames, they could see the damage was bad. The building was halfway collapsed, littering the street with crumbled concrete and chunks of unidentifiable charred objects.

“She’s in there?” Catherine skidded to a halt about 5 feet from the doorway.

“Yes, come on,” Greg urged.

“It can’t be safe in there,” Catherine shouted over the loud crackling sounds of the fire and shifting rubble.

“Sara’s in there, so are Nick and Warrick, we have to go,” Greg shook his head as if Catherine was out of her mind.

“We’ve got to go in there now,” Grissom sized up the building, “I think it’s going to get worse before help arrives. Let’s get them out, now!”

The two men continued into the hellish scene before them, Catherine reluctantly moving in behind them. It wasn’t that she didn’t care about her friends; she just had a very bad feeling. Her eyes burned as the acrid smoke poured out towards her and she was beyond the point of fresh air.

Inside the building, Greg dropped down to the floor and crawled under a large beam that had fallen across their path. Grissom waited for Catherine to catch up and let her go first, bringing up the rear himself. He hoped the small opening would hold long enough for them to get back out. As they made their way deeper inside, the heat started to intensify and the visibility was quite reduced.

“It’s just up ahead,” Greg shouted back to them.

They followed him around one more corner and into a larger open space.

“Greg, you’re back, good,” Nick said.

“I brought Grissom and Catherine,” he explained quickly.

“Thank God, you two are okay,” Warrick said.

Nick stood up and they saw a collapsed concrete barrier that must have been blocking off Sara.

“How do you know Sara is back there?” Grissom asked.

“She was just on the other side of the room. It’s the only place she can be. We can’t hear her, we’ve tried yelling, she may be unconscious,” Nick explained.

Catherine was speechless. Warrick stood up, glad to see the other CSIs were okay. He hated having to send Greg out for help, but they needed someone, the three of them were not quite strong enough to move this pile of rubble.

“Okay, we’ve got to move this as fast as we can to find her,” Warrick stated.

The other CSIs nodded their agreement. They all had the same thoughts crossing their mind as they slowly worked, but no one wanted to voice them. They all wondered if Sara was trapped in an area behind the rubble or if she was actually beneath it. After a moment, they came to a large block that looked impossible to lift.

“All right, let’s all try lifting this at the same time,” Nick suggested.

The four men and one woman waited for a count of three and then all strained to slowly, painfully lift the concrete up and out of their way. Once it was gone they could see a form lying back in the corner of the room. Nick climbed up and over the remaining rubble and jumped down on the other side before anyone else could think.

Once closer, Nick new it was Sara. He’d known before he got to her, but now there was no doubting it. She was unconscious as they had figured, but she was breathing on her own. He could see that one of her legs had been crushed by falling debris. He carefully lifted away a chunk of concrete and inspected the damage. Her leg was bleeding fairly heavily and he shouted at the others for something to possibly splint it with and something to try and stop the bleeding. When he was working on her leg, she began to moan. He knew he was hurting her, but he couldn’t help it. They had to get her out of here and that would be easier if she wasn’t bleeding to death while they were doing it.

Sara finally screamed, intense pain awakening her from unconsciousness. She couldn’t remember where she was or figure out why she was in so much pain. As her eyes finally focused, she saw Nick Stokes leaning over her.

“Hey Sara, your leg is pretty badly broken, but we have to move you,” Nick started.

Suddenly they heard a bunch of creaking and crashing as more of the debris around them settled. They all ducked and covered their heads, hoping they were not going to be trapped inside. Once the building settled, they decided they had to move quickly or be buried alive.

“Okay, Warrick, you climb over here and help me lift Sara out to Greg, Catherine and Grissom,” Nick instructed, now obviously in charge.

Warrick climbed nimbly over the debris and flashed a brief smile at Sara in greeting. She feebly smiled back and then squeezed her eyes shut in what had to be pain.

“Sara, sweetie, this is probably going to hurt you, but we have to do this. We have to get out of here or this damned building will kill us all. Warrick and I will be as careful as we can getting you to the other side of this collapsed wall. If it really hurts bad, just clamp down really hard on me, we’ll pause for a second to let the pain subside, but you understand we have to be fast,” Nick explained.

Sara nodded slowly, her face growing even paler as he spoke. The thought of moving was horrifying considering the pain she was in while holding still. However she trusted Nick and Warrick and knew they’d be as gentle as they could.

A minute later, she was being helped onto the other side of the rubble; her leg was causing her to realize realms of pain she never knew existed. Yet, as promised everyone was being as gentle as possible. Grissom and Catherine helped her to get down off the pile and sit against the wall while Nick and Warrick followed. Greg wanted to help her, but his hands were really beginning to throb and the pain was intensifying.

Once everyone was clear of the collapsed concrete, they had to make a decision on how to get out. Sara was insisting that she could walk with a little assistance. Despite the clear amount of pain she was in, she was putting on her usual tough exterior. They decided they’d just try to go out the way Greg had brought them back in. Greg led the way, as he was the only one who’d been out once already. Sara slowly brought up the rear, leaning heavily on Grissom and Nick for support. Catherine and Warrick followed Greg closely and kept an eye on Sara. With clear effort, she was making her way behind them, trying to make this appear like it was painless.

When they got to the part where everyone had to duck down and crawl, it was clear that this would be the hardest part. Sara was in tears, trying to make her way through, but she remained insistent that she was fine. It was obvious that she was embarrassed at her own tears, but no one cared about it. They wanted to see that their friend was okay. Greg had made it through first and was trying to help Sara, despite the intense pain in his hands. When he’d been crawling, he’d cut one open on a piece of metal which he had thrown aside so no one else would get hurt. He also got a lot of dust in his open wound and burnt hands.

Finally she got through to the other side and thought she would pass out from the pain. Instead she decided to focus on something else.

“Greg, your hands,” she saw that he was bleeding profusely from one hand.

“Cut it on a piece of metal just now,” he tried to hide his hands.

“No they’re burned too,” Sara grabbed his wrists gently, “Greg, this looks bad.”

“I’m okay,” his lower lip trembled. In reality he knew his hands were not okay, that his entire future might be ruined. What good was a CSI who couldn’t use their hands to collect small evidence?

Sara was looking at him with grave concern when Warrick slipped through followed by Catherine. Nick was behind them and Grissom was the last one waiting on the other side when the building shifted again. Thinking quickly, Warrick pulled Nick through as fast as he could and they were horrified as their already tiny passage was reduced to only inches.

A/N: Just a fair warning, this story is still in progress and while I have the next segment written, with finals coming up, it may take a little while to really get going.