Author's Note: Sorry for the long delay in getting this chapter up, I've had a lot to deal with: school work, orchestra concerts, and the loss of a boy at my school who I knew fairly well. But anyway, here is the next chapter. This chapter was another one that took me a while to write, but I did have a lot of fun writing the two new POVs in this chapter... especially Ecklie. So yes, I hope you enjoy this!

The Great Escape.

Sara was not in a good mood. Not at all. It was one of those days where everything started going wrong from the moment she woke up. She had managed to actually break her alarm clock; discovered that her phone needed charging up but that she didn’t have any time to do anything about it; spilt her coffee everywhere; burnt her toast and realised that she was out of milk; got stuck in traffic which made her late to work; and then, just when it all couldn’t get any worse, Nick had left her with the task of processing the contents of their vic’s bedroom which had been transported back to the lab. The vic hadn’t cared about the hygiene of their living area and therefore hadn’t felt compelled to clean it. All in all, it was not a nice task. But that was what happened when you were late.

What she really wanted to do was to go home and cry.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t going to be happening any time soon. She considered faking illness, but then Grissom would check up on her later. And then he would realise that she was lying. She would just have to hope that this shift passed swiftly.

She worked quickly and methodically. Or, at least, she thought she did. After what felt like a good three hours of processing endless junk and rotting food she looked at her watch and realised she was a lot less than half way through, and in fact it had only been an hour and a half.

She was going to kill Nick. Slowly and painfully. Very painfully.

She heard someone stop in the doorway behind her. The phrase ‘speak of the devil’ ran through her mind.

“I hope you’re coming to help me out, Stokes.”

There was a silence behind her. And then a small chuckle.

Maybe it wasn’t Nick after all.

Sara whipped around and came face to face with Greg, whose bruises did not hide the extremely amused smile he was wearing. It only added to her anger. How dare he laugh at her mistake? He'd made a whole lot more of them than she had since she had known him.

“Greg, I really don’t need this right now. Could you please go?”

She was very proud of the way she managed to keep her voice calm, and her words polite. Before something… less polite could spill out, she turned back and set about processing the rest of the evidence. From behind her, Greg said nothing… but he didn’t seem too keen on leaving either. And she thought she’d got her point across.

“Greg… please. I don’t have time to talk or anything,” she implored, her back still turned to him.

There was a long pause as she waited for either his response, or for him to leave. She didn’t really care if she’d upset him. She would deal with it later.

“You… uh… you look like you could use another set of hands.” Greg’s voice was hesitant.

“Very observant Greg.” This was just too much for her to take. “But I already told you that I really don’t have the time for your humour right now, ok? You can’t help me, and you know it, so would you please just leave me alone?”

“I could help you if it was off the record,” Greg suggested lightly.

Sara turned around, her anger suddenly gone. The throw-away nature of the comment was undermined by the pleading look in his eyes. She had been so wrapped up in her own anger, in her own bad day, she hadn’t stopped to realise that this was killing Greg. If she was the one being confined to the lab… she would not have lasted this long. But everyone has their breaking point and, from the look on Greg’s face, he was just about reaching his.

But the orders from the Undersherrif had been clear. Greg was on desk duty until the Coroner’s Inquest. No arguments.

She smiled at the man standing in front of her.

“Gloves are in the box over there.”

She had never been too good at resisting his ‘puppy-dog eyes’.

Wendy was not eavesdropping. Not in any way, shape or form. She just happened to need to give Grissom his results… and she just happened to have overheard the conversation between Greg and Grissom that was taking place the other side of the door.

The mention of her name had first grabbed her attention.

“If you really need something else to do, you could always help Wendy out in DNA. She wouldn’t mind an extra set of hands.”

She wouldn’t have minded, but it wasn’t as if she needed an extra set of hands. Living up to Greg’s reputation was hard. She knew that she was good at her job, but nobody else really seemed to grasp just how good at it she was. Greg had always been better.

“Wendy doesn’t need any help!” Thank you, Greg. “And besides, I wasn’t talking about working in the DNA lab.”

“Well, what were you talking about?” Grissom’s voice didn’t have the slightest hint of curiosity, which led Wendy to believe that he already knew. He just wanted Greg to say it himself, for whatever reason.

Maybe she should consider becoming a CSI.

“Look, Grissom. I can’t be stuck in this lab any longer, ok? I… I need to be out, doing something. I want to go back in the field.”

Grissom sighed.

“Greg… it was never my decision to make.” He sounded resigned, apologetic.

“Please Grissom.” There was a pleading note in Greg’s voice that Wendy had never heard before; it made her want to rush in and hug him. “I need to be doing something, anything, to take my mind of this. I’ve already helped Sara out processing stuff off the record.”

“You could both get in trouble for that.” Grissom didn’t sound too angry about it.

“Even if it was just collecting stuff… or... anything, the smallest of jobs. Just something that would get me out of here.”

There was a long silence.

“I can’t promise anything.”

“I know that.”

“I’ll talk to Ecklie, and see if there’s anything we can do about it.”

“Thank you.” Greg sounded more hopeful than Wendy had heard him in a long time.

She quickly retreated around a corner as Greg exited Grissom’s office, pretending to be just walking round it as Greg approached.

“Hey Wendy,” he greeted, with a genuine smile on his face. It made her smile too, since moments like that were rare now.

“Hey Greg, you ok?” she replied, deciding that she wouldn’t tell him what she had overheard.

“Yeah, fine. How’ve you been doing in the last… oh, fifteen minutes since our last conversation?”

He was joking. That was a good sign.

“About fifteen times more inclined to murder Hodges,” she joked back.

Greg laughed.

“You shouldn’t talk about that sort of stuff in the lab, too many people who would be able to put you away if you did,” he shot back, moving to walk past her. “Anyway, I’ve got paperwork to do. See you around,” he added as he walked off.

“Yeah,” she called back.

She really, really hoped that Grissom was able to talk Ecklie into letting Greg back in the field.

Conrad Ecklie had never been known as Gil Grissom’s biggest fan. After splitting up the nightshift he had developed an uneasy relationship with most of Grissom’s team members as well, although over the following couple of years it had begun to relax somewhat.

But still, he was never overly pleased when Grissom came to query him on some subject. And this was no exception.

“What is it now, Gil?” he asked wearily, briefly wondering if this man was ever going to stop causing him trouble.

“I have a matter regarding one of my CSIs that I would like to discuss with you.”

The man was as polite as ever, Ecklie had to give him that. But he wasn’t quite ready to play nice just yet. He sighed and gestured towards his office.

“Ok, Gil. What’s going on?”

Grissom gave a small smirk at the less than polite response. Ecklie decided that he couldn’t care less.

“Greg Sanders.”

Maybe he wouldn’t automatically dismiss what Grissom had to say. Of all the CSIs on the nightshift, Ecklie would have to say that Sanders was the most likeable. Of course, he had caused the lab problems when he had moved from DNA to the field… but he was still willing to cover in the DNA lab from time to time, so Ecklie hadn’t held it against him. And he felt sorry for the younger CSI, after all that had happened recently.

“Greg came to me in my office earlier, requesting to be moved back into the field. As you know, the undersherrif has ordered that he stay on desk duty until the Coroner’s Inquest.”

Of course he knew that. The undersherrif had made everyone very aware of the scrutiny that Sanders’ actions had put LVPD under. In his own opinion, the guy needed to give Sanders a break, but you didn’t go around saying things like that to the undersherrif if you wanted to keep your job.

“However, I feel that it would be in everyone’s best interests to get Greg back in the field. Not least for his own sanity.”

That was all well and good but the undersherrif had specifically ordered that Sanders was not to go into the field until his fate had been decided.

“What do you want me to do about it?” he asked Grissom, expecting some kind of genius idea that he could reluctantly go along with.

“Oh, I was just bringing the matter to your attention, Conrad,” the other man replied, a fully fledged smirk now on his face as he practically waltzed out the door.

Ecklie glared at his retreating form. So Grissom was passing the buck. Again. Great. Just great.