Note: Ello, all! So, I had a great dream last night, about Grissom and Sara and the gang from Animorphs, all stuck together in the same world. And when I woke up, I was like...that'd be an interesting fic. I'm not entirely sure where this is going, but I have some ideas. So, let's find out, shall we? By the way, I'm time-twisting just a little, to make it all fit. Whee. Heh heh. Angeliz out.

…

"Gil?"

He glanced up from his tarantula with that surprised, almost childish look on his face, eyes wide behind their lenses. It was that look that made her wonder, on occasion, if his hearing had truly been repaired correctly or if he just lived so far within his own mind that the world's constant intrusions came as an ever-sudden shock. And it wasn't even a particularly human quirk, from what she had observed. Just a Grissom quirk. It would really be interesting to get inside his head, if she ever had the opportunity, not that it was likely she ever would.

"Catherine," he said then, breaking her train of thought as the tarantula wandered idly across his forearm, making her shudder. Creepy little thing. "Did you need something?"

She shook it off, flicking invisible lint off her blouse as she spoke. No need to give him a reason to think anything was less than ordinary. "Uh, yeah, actually. I've got some bugs on a Jane Doe, and I was wondering if you'd be interested? I'm trying to establish a timeline."

Gil cocked his head at her, bringing his tarantula-free hand to his chin. "Where did you find the body?"

"In a ditch on the side of a road out near Henderson. Looks like a dump location, but as for when…" She trailed off, shrugging her shoulders and fixing him with a mock-scolding look, softened by a playful smile. "Unless I'm interrupting your paperwork."

He actually grinned a little at that, settling his pet back into its roomy tank and replacing the screen atop it. "Not at all. Lead the way, Catherine."

She couldn't help but chuckle. If one thing about Gil Grissom could be considered constant, it was his knack for avoiding paperwork. Whoever ended up with him would get that benefit, at least. "Lucky bastard," she murmured, and hoped he wouldn't hear.

He didn't.

The trip to the morgue was a silent one, as Gil likely considered the insect population of Henderson and she focused on the task at hand. She could feel the faintest ripple of unease stirring within her host, as though she might jump at the sudden opportunity to break free and run down the hall, raving. Gil was an old friend, after all, and it was only natural that betraying him would carry a greater reluctance than the betrayal of Ecklie, or even of Nick and Warrick. Still, it was easy to quash the almost-uprising with a single moment of focus, an image of Lindsey rising to mind. Simple. After all, her host had given her freedom to protect her daughter; even the oldest of old friends could not compete with that.

"Doc?" she called as she pushed through the doors, though she knew quite well that Al Robbins was otherwise detained at the moment. "David? Anyone home?"

Gil turned to look at her, one eyebrow lifted, and she shrugged in return. "Maybe they're taking a bathroom break?"

"At the same time?" Gil murmured curiously, moving deeper into the morgue. She could practically hear the gears turning in his head, intrigued with this new puzzle to ponder. Plan A noticed as well, and took the liberty of treating itself to a flying leap out the figurative window. Not a chance, now that he's sharpened. Looks like we go for the direct approach.

Catherine's fingers lingered over the wrench she'd placed in her labcoat pocket, just in case Plan B became necessary. She was aware of the irony, her host's memories betraying a scene some years earlier in which she had saved her friend from a serial killer's frenzied attack by the very same tool. While part of her insisted that its use was only logical—the incident in the past proved that it worked well, so why stray?—another part knew that she was allowing her own twisted amusement to play a part in the night's planning. But honestly, what did it matter, as long as it worked? She could have a bit of fun.

"Say goodnight, Gil," she whispered, a grin wide across her host's pretty face. The wrench came down before he even had the chance to turn.

…

In his dream, Grissom was bending over a body riddled with larvae, inspecting each tiny creature carefully behind the eye of a magnifying glass. They wriggled and squirmed as he passed them over, burrowing beneath loosened layers of dead skin, translucence lending them the appearance of a particularly gruesome rice paper. But that wasn't the strangest thing about them, honestly, though he couldn't yet put his finger on it. Something just struck him as odd, even more so than the faceless corpse.

And then his hearing popped back in, and he realized that they were screaming, the terrible sound rising around him until he could hear nothing else.

He woke with a start.

"Catherine?" he tried as a few selective memories filtered back in, though his throat felt fuzzy and his head was practically aflame. Squinting, he could just make out the swing of her hair ahead of him, trailing her familiar shampoo scent. She seemed to be leading. He noticed then that he was following her of someone else's volition, dragged along by strong hands to his immediate left and right, and familiar hands, at that. "Nicky? Warrick?"

Neither answered him, focusing instead on dragging him bodily down a rough-hewn stairwell that seemed unending, sinking steeply into the bowels of the earth. He realized that he had no idea where he was in almost the same instant that he realized he could still hear the screaming, drifting upward with strengthening intent. Hazily, he brought his feet to the ground, dragging them with little resolve. That much, at least, finally got Catherine's attention.

"Don't worry, Gil," she said simply, without turning to face him. "We're almost there."

"Where are we..?"

"You'll see."

Grissom frowned, unnerved by the strange undertone in her voice, as well as by the ever-increasing volume of the screaming. Somewhere ahead of them there seemed to be a light, opening the tunnel out into a wider cavern through which the sounds were reverberating. His stomach flipped. Unsure as he was of the situation, he knew at least that he wanted to be nowhere near wherever he was being taken. And as much as he trusted his team, he could not ignore the worming certainty that this, despite all appearances, was not his team.

And then the stairway finally opened up, and logic went away.

The cavern was unexpectedly huge, almost like a small city, surrounded at the edges by small buildings and sheds, everything centralized around a vast pool of grayish sludge. He could see two piers stretched out over the edge of the pool, lines of people and…not-people…moving across them. There were large, razored creatures that almost reminded him of dinosaurs, as well as great wormlike beasts that slithered back and forth, teeth gnashing. Yet, what most caught his attention were the rows upon rows of cages, situated just behind the piers. It was from these that the screams echoed, torn from the throats of their many human captives.

What?…

"Hold him," Catherine barked, and it was only when the hands on his arms tightened that Grissom realized he had moved, involuntarily jerking from his captors. Roughly, they pushed him the rest of the way down the stairs, letting up slightly once they reached solid ground. The screams were practically pounding against his skull, a hellish symphony of young and old, male and female, familiar and foreign. With a sick jolt, Grissom recognized Greg's untidy mop of hair, his pale forehead pressed against the bars of the nearest cage. David stood beside him, wilted.

Catherine finally turned then, gesturing toward the second pier with a flick of her manicured fingers. "See you soon, Gil," she said with a smile, flipping long blond hair over one shoulder. "And try not to struggle. You really don't have it in you."

As Nick and Warrick dragged him roughly through the crowd of people, Grissom could not help staring at each familiar face, his thoughts in overdrive. There was Doc Robbins, chatting with Catherine as though nothing were amiss. There was Laurie, the receptionist, and a young officer he knew only by sight. There was one of the professors from the local university, being dragged along, screaming, by one of the heavily bladed things. And there was Greg, staring at him desperately as he passed by the cage.

What was strange, though, Grissom thought, wincing as they forced his head beneath the sludge's surface, what was strange was that he could not help but feel a tiny twinge of relief, somewhere in the back of his mind. He was horrified, and confused, and infinitely apprehensive, yet around all this coiled a single shining thread of gratitude for an abrupt departure he had never seen coming. And despite it all, he could form only one coherent thought as the first burst of pain fired through his ear.

Sara…

…

A state away, Sara Sidle sighed, leaning back against the trunk of a particularly shady oak as her eyes wandered the multitude before her almost habitually. There was a fairly decent crowd today, out to celebrate the first real days of springtime, surging through the park as though on a mission. She could hear their happy shrieks even from this side of the exhibits, rising and falling beneath the rumble of the much-lauded roller coasters. Not that she had much to do with said lauding. Roller coasters had never really been her thing, unlike with some people.

Some people she really needed to stop thinking about every waking moment of her day.

Sara shook her head a little, focusing back in on her more immediate surroundings. Her shift was nearly over and most of the animals had been taken care of, so she had decided to relax a little, choosing one of the big trees set in a semicircle around the food court. Now she was more or less people-watching, letting her senses linger on little, insignificant things. The salted scent of nachos and cheese, for example, or the shimmer of sun reflecting off the dampened trail leading to the dolphin tank. The faint caress of the breeze through her hair. The sound of a group of teenagers chatting.

"Ax, slow down, man. You're going to get sick."

"But these buns…bun-zuh…are delicious. Dee. Lishus. Lisshus."

Okay…the sound of some rather weird teenagers chatting.

"Oh, let him be, Marco. At least he's not eating the wrappers."

Sara couldn't help but grin at that, the unspoken again hanging thick in the air. On second thought, though, she almost knew these teenagers, regulars at The Gardens. The shorter girl—Cassie—was the daughter of the head veterinarian, if she remembered correctly, and the blonde beside her was Rachel. The rest were boys whose names swam lazily in her head, tangled hopelessly together. Though the one inhaling Cinnabons could only be Ax; weird name, but then again, weird kid. Still, they were a close-knit group, which always blindsided her with a pang of regret. The lab had been her only real family.

"So, fearless leader," one of the boys said suddenly, interrupting her musings with a resigned note in his voice. "Was there a reason you called us here today, or did you just think we could use a family vacation?"

The taller boy beside him straightened, suddenly seeming to age a few years in the space of a single moment as he toyed with his nachos. "Erek stopped by yesterday, actually," he said, voice lowering. "He just got some interesting information about a new Yeerk target."

"Stop right there, Jake," the first boy said, shaking his head firmly. His long dark hair followed almost comically. "Anytime Erek stops by for a chat, we end up running and screaming. Every time. Why do you keep talking to him when you know it only ends in pain?" He leaned forward, shaking his friend by the shoulder. "Pain. And running."

"And Las Vegas."

"And Las…wait, come again? As in, the Las Vegas? Girls? Gambling? Drive-thru weddings? That Las Vegas?"

"I'm pretty sure there's only one, Marco," Jake said, smiling faintly. Across the table, Rachel echoed the expression with a smirk, swirling her straw around her drink. "And I'm pretty sure that the girls there won't like you any better than the girls here," she added, shaking her long hair out behind her.

Marco leered at her. "Jealous?"

"Hah. When pigs fly."

"Quick, Cassie, do that double-morph thing—"

"Uh, Jake?" the other boy spoke up suddenly, eyes darting beneath his fringe of light brown hair. "Not to get pushy, but I've only got about an hour before I have to get back…"

Marco nodded, abruptly businesslike, slinging his arm around the quiet boy's shoulders. "Right, right, bird-boy has to get back. So go ahead and tell us why my new best friend Erek thinks we should go to Las Vegas."

"Vay-gas. Gass," Ax interjected, around a mouthful of popcorn.

Jake grinned a little, reaching up to pat Marco on the shoulder. "Sorry to break your heart, but if we do end up going, it's strictly business. Apparently the LVPD has the country's second best forensics lab in the country, with some pretty influential employees."

Beside the tree, Sara stiffened, her idle attention suddenly fully focused. Luckily, none of the kids seemed to notice, as fully absorbed as they were in their conversation. Carefully now, she ran her eyes over each teen in turn, wondering what, exactly, they had to do with the members of the Las Vegas crime lab.

The quiet boy nodded slightly, eyes still darting, though his angle prevented him from really noticing the woman lurking at the edge of the food court. "I read about one of them recently, I think. Some girl at the park had a forensics journal I was checking out."

"So, let me guess," Marco said, heaving an exaggerated sigh. "The Yeerks have decided that control of the number two crime lab in the nation wouldn't be too shabby, so Erek figured that, naturally, we would be the folks to call."

"That's about it," Jake confirmed, spreading his hands palms-up on the table. Rachel tilted her head quizzically.

"Why go after the number two lab, though? Why not number one?"

Cassie smiled a little. "Because number one happens to be the FBI, and I don't think even the Yeerks are that ambitious. Not yet, anyway." At her friends' stares, she shrugged, sipping her water. "We just went over it in science."

Sara sighed slightly, eyes narrowed as she ran thoughtful fingers through her hair. She wasn't quite sure what was going on, or exactly who or what Yeerks were, for that matter, but she was definitely intrigued. Maybe when she got home, she would give Grissom a call…

Suddenly, she became aware of Rachel's ice-blue eyes gazing intently in her direction, a quiet murmur bringing the others' attention toward her as well. Fixed abruptly with the prospect of six annoyed teenagers staring her down, Sara felt her face heat up, embarrassment overpowering curiosity, if only for the moment. The quiet boy's eyes were exceptionally fierce, almost pinning her with their raptor-intensity. It was all she could do to turn quickly and beat a hasty retreat, abandoning the shade of her oak.

As she moved down the path toward the dolphin exhibit, she could feel the group's collective gaze still burning into her back, unnerving. Sure, she knew she shouldn't have been listening in, but it had been so leisurely until they had mentioned her old city. And it was so difficult to keep her mind off of Grissom, anyway, that she had all but leapt at their discussion of the crime lab…

Sara gave an exasperated sound, reaching around to pull her hair into a messy ponytail. She would call him tonight, she decided, to talk about old times. And about their relationship. And maybe she could even ask him if he'd ever heard of a Yeerk, because it was probably going to drive her crazy if she didn't figure that part out. Yes, she'd call him tonight, because she missed him, missed him like the other half of her soul.

She was so preoccupied as she walked through the exhibits that she didn't even notice the red-tailed hawk, trailing high above her like a shadow.

…

Tbc! I like reviews, by the by... Just thought I'd let you know. Hehe. (Oh, and to anyone reading my other CSI crossover, this has nothing to do with that...but! I am working on that one, as well. Heh. Okay, now go review.)