The Pack

Disclaimer: I don't own anything or anyone in regards to CSI; the show and its characters belong to a bunch of people who aren't me. I am merely borrowing the characters for my own amusement. Dance puppets, dance.

Author's Note: I was inspired to write this fic after watching many hours of Animal Police. I'm a sucker for animal rescue shows even if they make me cry. This is a multi-chapter story, but it is finished! I will be posting one chapter a day. This fic takes place in the spring of 2006. And if you have time, please leave a review as they always make me happy :)

Waffles and all thing pumkin flavored to EllipsesBandit, for she is truly a talented and wonderful beta.

Home, sweet home

Sara sighed contently as she closed the door behind her. Even though they had been living in the new house for three weeks, it was already home. Home. With packed bookcases, dirty clothes left on the bathroom floor, and an experiment or two in the refrigerator. Kicking off her shoes, she hung her jacket in the closest before proceeding downstairs to the kitchen.

They had decided to buy a new place together, and settled on a condo in neighborhood away from the Strip. The sterility of his place and the emptiness of her apartment had been replaced with the warmth of soft blue walls, plush and comfortable couches, and large windows that bathed everything in sunlight during the day.

Opening the refrigerator, Sara pulled out a bottle of water and sat at the breakfast bar. As she flipped through the day's mail, her cell phone rang. She frowned, for once hoping she wasn't about to be called in on her night off. But seeing the name on the caller ID had her smiling.

His light and soothing greeting of, "Hello, dear," never failed to make her heart rate speed up.

"Hello, Gilbert," she answered back, just as playful. "How'd the meetings go this afternoon?" Naturally the administration had chosen to schedule a series of meetings on one of their few, precious days off together, forcing Grissom to cut their afternoon short.

"Under Sheriff McKeen's fondness of the sound of his own voice has grown into what can only be described as a passionate love affair."

Chuckling, she said, "A long and boring afternoon, then?"

He grunted. "More like mind-numbing monotony. What are you up to?"

"Just opening mail; the new issue of Baseball Digest came today." She hoped the mention of his favorite magazine would brighten his otherwise dreary day. "I was going to think about starting dinner soon. Italian or Mexican-what are you in the mood for?"

"Is Pino's still having their special on calzones?"

Grissom's cooking lessons had elevated Sara's skills from Cup-of-Noodles in the microwave to boiling her own noodles for spaghetti, but she still preferred her original culinary style.

"As a matter of fact they are." Her tone turned impish, "So if you're nice I'll order your disgusting, meaty calzone when you leave the lab and you'll have a nice, hot dinner ready when you get home."

There was a pause and she could picture him sitting at his desk, shaking his head slightly. "Actually that's what I'm calling about. Nick called in sick so I'm staying to cover his shift."

"And here I was going to tell you Silverado was on tonight so we could watch it." She sighed heavily, "I just don't know what I'm going to do now."

"I know, honey, but try not to be too disappointed," he deadpanned.

After a few more minutes of conversation, they exchanged "be careful's," and "goodbye's." While she was in the mood for one of her many burrito indulgences from Roberto's, she dialed the number for Pino's and ordered in a small pineapple pizza, and the Meat Lover's calzone.

She settled under a soft blanket for the evening with her newest book, The Lynne Truss Treasury. Around eleven, she stretched her limbs and then proceeded to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Just as she returned to cozy confines of the sofa, the bushes in the backyard started to rustle.

At first she thought it was just a light breeze, but her pulse quickened at the sound of branches and twigs snapping and cracking. She turned her head to direction of the backdoor; even with the curtains drawn, she could still tell the motion lights hadn't been triggered. She remembered locking the doors and windows, but that knowledge still didn't ease her tension.

As the rustling continued, Sara swiftly went to the closet. Fine time for me to leave my gun in my locker, she mentally grumbled as she took the heaviest of Grissom's softball bats from the closest.

Slowly and quietly, Sara made her way back downstairs to the back door. When she heard a loud series of snaps and crunches, her hold on the bat went from white knuckle to death grip.

Whatever gun-wielding maniac back there is going to be sorry, she thought, Not only do I know every police officer and CSI in Las Vegas, but I can a hit a 50 mile per hour baseball; that kind of swing will leave a mark. She congratulated herself for a moment. Oh yeah, no gun is a match for my Louisville Catalyst X-1 bat.

She flipped on the lights for the backyard patio before raising her weapon and carefully drawing the curtain back…

But she didn't see anything. Not even a shadow. Sara opened the curtains slightly more, and looked in the direction of the bush; the plant remained still and silent. She badly wanted to go outside and see look for evidence of shoeprints in the dirt, but she didn't want to take the chances of running into an intruder if they decided to stick around; it would have to wait until morning.

Double checking the locks, she closed the curtains and turned on a few more lights in the living room. She eventually settled in the recliner with her book, another softball bat by her side.

It was rare to have a slow night, as the apocalypse proved to happen on any day of the week, and the next shift was no exception. As soon as she clocked in, Sara was dispatched to a crime scene along with Greg, Nick, and Catherine. They were given an address located in a neighborhood near UNLV.

They pulled up to a small house, already surrounded with crime scene tape and police officers securing the area. Two fire trucks sat behind a police cruiser and the heavy smell of smoke and burned wood filled the air. The four found Brass waiting on the sidewalk.

"I hope everyone has brushed up on their chemistry," the captain said to the approaching group.

"Science experiment gone wrong?" Nick guessed.

"Something like that." Brass flipped through his notes. "The house belongs to Donna Jones, but she rented it out to two students, Mark Hollister and Kevin Moss. According to the neighbors, they're both grad students in the chemistry department." Brass glanced at the house. "I don't have to tell you what happened."

Catherine asked, "Who called it in?"

"One of the neighbors. According to them, everything was quiet until they heard screaming. They look outside, and see a human fireball running in the street. And the next moment, the house is up in flames. Paramedics IDed the vic as Mark. He was taken to Desert Palm."

Sara's eyebrows furrowed in thought. "Any idea where the fire started?"

Blowing out a breath, Brass answered, "My guess would be the basement. It looked like he was doing some special cooking down there. Bunsen burner, car batteries, bottles of what looked like ammonia and lye…"

"Somehow I don't think meth production is an appropriate thesis topic," Catherine said. "Where's the other roommate?"

Shaking his head slightly, Brass closed his note pad. "Hasn't shown up yet, but he'll turn up soon. We've got our guys searching the area." He lifted the tape. "It's all yours."

The CSIs spent hours in the house, carefully and methodically working through the blackened debris of what was obviously a basement drug lab. After processing the basement, Sara, Greg, and Nick split up searching the rest of the house. Finding nothing of interest in the kitchen and living room, Sara was about to go help Nick with the upstairs rooms when she spotted a shed against the fence in the backyard.

A small, dilapidated tree stood pitifully in the middle the yard. Even with only her flashlight, she could see the yellowed, dead and dying grass among the patches of dirt. Sara noticed a pale green, rusty garden hose hanging on the side of the shed; the hose wasn't connected any water source.

Before she even wrapped her fingers around the door handle, she heard the sound a low whine. She stopped and moved closer to the door, listening for the sound. About a minute or so later, she heard another whine, but it didn't appear to be coming from inside the shed. Sweeping her flashlight to the side with hose revealed nothing, but thin weeds.

Turning to the right, Sara noticed the shed wasn't flush with the fence parallel to its side; there looked to be a three foot area between the shed and fence. She circled to the other side, and found the red-rimmed eyes of a dog crammed into the tiny space.

She immediately crouched down on her knees, tentatively lifting her hand out for the dog to sniff it, but the canine barely moved a muscle.

"Hey there, boy. What's going on? Are you okay?"

Running her flashlight over the dog, she cringed at seeing all of the ribs jutting out. Not only that, she noticed the outline of the bones of the back legs. There were several patches of bright pink, inflamed skin along the muzzle and stomach. With the dog having made no significant movement toward her, Sara carefully ran her fingers over the dirty brown fur. She wasn't completely familiar with breeds, but to her best guess the poor canine looked like a boxer.

"We're going to get you some help, okay? We'll get you some good food and water. How does that sound?" Her voice stayed low and calming.

She looked back to the house, just in time to see Brass open the back door. "Sara?" he called out.

"I'm by the shed," she answered.

The captain's shoes crunched against the gravel and rocks as he approached them. "I thought you were searching the kitchen and living room."

"I was, and then I found this guy here," her attention going back to the dog lying before her.

Brass held his flashlight above the pair. "I guess we can add animal cruelty to the charges against the chemistry geniuses."

"Looks like it," she sighed. "Does the humane society have people working nights? This dog needs to go to a hospital right now."

"I'm pretty sure they do. I'll give 'em a call right now."

While Brass spoke on the phone, Sara kept up a gentle stream of words to the dog. Seeing the outline of the frame was nothing compared to feeling the hard bones against the boxer's skin. She winced as her hand went over each and every bump of the vertebrae.

As they waited, Sara badly wanted to ask Brass to find some food and water in the house, but with little veterinary knowledge, she knew this dog would require intravenous care. And she didn't want to feed the canine something that might make him even sicker.

After what seemed like hours, Brass's cell phone rang. He answered it, and then informed Sara the representatives from the Las Vegas Valley Humane Society had arrived. Five minutes later, a police officer came through the back door, escorting two women. Sara rose to her feet to greet them. The heavy set blonde introduced herself as Elizabeth Kendrick. The twenty-ish short brunette with announced herself as Christy DeGucamo.

Sara quickly explained the situation while they jotted notes. They identified the dog as a male boxer, approximately one year old. Shining a light beam on the dog, Christy crouched down and a hand over the dog's body.

"He doesn't have an ounce of fat on him," the younger woman scowled. "There's barely any muscle."

The other human society officer looked up from her clipboard. "What do you want to scale him?"

"Whatever comes right after zero," Christy answered frankly.

Sara's forehead wrinkled. "Scale?"

"We rank animals' body mass from one to ten," Christy explained. "Ten being morbidly obese and one being morbidly emaciated." She lingered over the patches of missing fur. "He's also got a pretty bad case of mange. It looks like he's had it for a long time."

Blowing out a long breath, Sara worried her bottom lip in her teeth. The words said aloud seemed to compound the seriousness of the situation.

Elizabeth pursed her lips in thought. "And the whereabouts of the tenants?"

"One turned himself into a human roasted marshmallow, and we're still trying to track down the other one," Brass replied.

Nodding, the older woman tucked the clipboard under her arm. "Okay. Because of the severity of this dog's condition we're going to seize him without a warrant." She looked to Brass and Sara. "Can one of you guys help load him? I need to take pictures of the yard so we can document the dog's poor living conditions."

Sara immediately volunteered and waited as Christy retrieved a pet carrier. The criminalist ever so gently rubbed the dog's neck while murmuring words of comfort. When she looked into the canine's brown eyes, she noticed a trail of wetness going his snout, and it was all she could do not to cry herself.

With the pet carrier lined with a blanket, Sara slowly and carefully help load the boxer inside. Just before the metal door closed, the dog made its first significant movement as he ever so lightly pressed his nose into Sara's palm.

She watched as the carrier was loaded into the humane society marked Tahoe. When the trunk door slammed shut, she asked the question that had been burning in her mind since the pair of women made their initial assessment. "What do you think his chances are of surviving?"

With serious eyes, Elizabeth considered the question for a longer moment, making the pit in Sara's stomach a little deeper. Then she said, "I've been doing this job for seventeen years, and he's in one of the worst conditions I've seen. We're going to do everything we can for him, but…" She stopped. "He'll be lucky if he makes it through the next few days."

Nodding slowly, Sara stepped away from the SUV. She watched it speed away from the house, until the red tail lights faded away.

TBC