Silence was all that could be heard.
No one had ever seen Warrick like this. He had always been the cool calm and collected one out of the group and right now, he was not himself. He was a watery mess of a man who could not put two sentences together. Warrick sat in the waiting room chair holding his head in his hands, wanting to rip his hair out. Sara sat to the left of him, rubbing his back while still trying to hold it together herself.
Catherine was leaning against the wall, fighting to keep herself up, but soon lost the battle as her legs gave out from under her and she slid her way to the floor. Greg sat in silence one chair to the right of Warrick. He was trying to take in everything that had just happened. "How could this be happening?" A tear slipped down his cheek and his heart sank. Grissom sat in the corner of the waiting room, away from everyone, trying to figure out how he was going to live with it. Mrs. Stokes had had a nervous breakdown from the news. She nearly collapsed as the doctor read her Nick's diagnosis. Mr. Stokes was there to catch her, but was barely able to stand himself.
"When can we see him?" Mrs. Stokes asked as tears streamed down her face.
"Well, he's stable, but we are going to need to know your decision soon." Dr. Allen said bluntly as if with no remorse for this family.
"How long does he have?" Mr. Stokes asked, clearing his throat and showing his obvious annoyance with the doctor.
"If you keep him on the machines, it could be 2 to 3 day, 2 to 3 weeks, it could even be 2 to 3 years, I'm not at liberty to say." The doctor said as if he had memorized from a script.
"We want to keep him on the machines." Mrs. Stokes said almost choking as the words left her throat.
"Dear….," Mr. Stokes began," we need to talk about this."
"No. No more talking. We need to do what's best for our son right now," Mrs. Stokes demanded as tears streamed down her face.
Mr. Stokes had a look on his face that none of the CSIs had ever seem before. It was a look of bewilderment and of fear.
"Ok," Mr. Stokes said without looking up., "Keep him on the machines for as long as you can."
Nick was brain dead. He wouldn't be able to live without the machines. The Nick they knew was gone and it was just an empty shell left in that room until fate decided that he should come along. So they sat there. Waiting. Waiting for some miracle to appear and get them out of this terrible hell hole. They knew it wouldn't come. But still they hoped and they prayed that Nick hadn't used his nine lives yet, and would still come back to them.
Warrick sat in the chair gasping for air as the tears hit the floor. He sat there thinking to himself, Why? Why does everything happen to Nick? The man never got a break. Warrick suddenly felt selfish as he realized that all the "good luck" had rubbed off on himself, while Nick was left out to dry. Before Warrick had time to react, his fist was through the wall of the waiting room, awaking everyone from their sleepless slumber. Punch, after punch, the team realized that Warrick was taking it the worst out of all of them. He suddenly stopped as he felt a sharp pain, and blood rushing down his arm.
"What are you doing?" The secretary asked as she sat at her desk in shock of what Warrick was doing.
Warrick looked at her with fury in his eyes as he lowered himself to the floor of the waiting room. The team sat there in shock, not knowing what to do, or say. Warrick sat there on the floor, gently rocking himself back and forth.
"It should have been me. It should have been me. It should have been me," Warrick said, picking the rubble out of his cut.
They had never seen him like this before. Warrick sat in the corner of the room like a little child that's afraid of the dark.
"It's my fault. It should have been me. It should have been me. Not Nick. Not Nick, me," Warrick said as tears fell from his eyes forming puddles in the dimples on his chin.
Sara and Catherine couldn't help but cry as they saw yet another one of their friends going into a nervous breakdown. It was all Greg could do. He sat there as tears flowed down his face. Grissom sat there staring at Warrick in total disbelief. He had to get away. He rushed past Catherine in the hallway and fought his way through the crowd of police officers to the fresh, winter air. As the air hit his lungs, he couldn't help but let them flee from his eyes.
The tears had never come this easily before. Why was this different? He inhaled and exhaled, trying to regain his composure. He stared up at the few stars in the sky that were not affected by the many lights of Las Vegas. He tried to walk but felt as if his feet were cemented to the "Welcome to Desert Palms Hospital" door mat. For the first time in his life, Gil Grissom didn't know what to do.
"Do I run? Do I stay? Should I let them have their much needed alone time or do I try to console them?"
Thoughts rushed through his head.
"Stop thinking and start doing."
That was his final thought as he realized what he needed to do.
He walked back into the hospital to find Sara and Greg sharing a hospital blanket on the very uncomfortable hospital chairs drinking the cheap ass hospital coffee that claims to keep the doctors up. Even as she slept, a tear fell from Sara's face and found its way down her cheek and absorbed itself into the blanket.
He walked to the front desk to ask the secretary where Warrick and Catherine had gone.
As his mouth began to form the question, she cut him off and bluntly said, "Room 3, he cut his hand pretty bad, doctor had to give him a sedative to calm down." Grissom tried to focus his attention but his mind kept racing with the "what ifs". He was hearing her but was not listening. He shook his head anyways as if he understood what she was saying. Overwhelmed with the guilt that comes with yet another loss, he headed to room 3 to check up on Warrick.
"Now hold on Mr.….Grissom," The angry secretary said as she motioned him back to her desk.
He slowly shuffled his way back to her desk. He looked at her through empty, tired eyes trying to concentrate on what she was saying.
"You need to fill out these liability papers and we also need to know who is going to pay for the hole in the wall."
He stared at her in disbelief. He couldn't believe that she had asked him about the wall. A wall. Something that could easily be repaired. But Nick would never be repaired. He was permanently broken and all the money in the world couldn't bring him back.
He walked past her, not saying a word in response to her statement.
"Mr. Grissom? Mr. Grissom?" She called to him with no response.
1……2….. 3.
As he walked in he saw Warrick, with his left hand strapped to the edge of the bed, held tightly by Catherine who was waiting for him to come to. His right hand was being worked on by the nurse who was assigned to him. She cut the string and wrapped his hand with gauge.
"All better now," The nurse said in the voice they asked her to use when she was with patients.
Catherine idly let a final tear stream down her face, while still holding onto Warrick's hand, and she scoffed bitterly. "All better? Not even close."