Author's Note: Oneshot. Post "For Gedda". Possible character death. Nick's POV-first person.
All mistakes are mine, because I like to meddle, and I am not perfect.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters mentioned.
Acknowledgements: Thanks, as always, to Amanda for proofreading and editing.
Summary: How are you supposed to live while your best friend's life is hanging by a thread? How are you supposed to be all right when he could die without ever seeing you again?
Faded to Gray
I couldn't think. My mind was a complete and utter blank. Blurs passed by my sightless eyes, sounds echoed in my deaf ears, and the whole time all I could do was stand there. Stand there, apparently taking it all in, even when I couldn't. I wouldn't.
There was the constant buzzing in my mind, a constant pain in my heart. If I shut my eyes, all I could see was you. You lying helpless with the blood already dried on your body. You dying in front of me.
There was a hand being held in mine, a head on my right shoulder, and someone leaning upon my left. I was surrounded, but I felt alone, exposed.
I could hear a woman crying, a voice murmuring to her, the sounds of people rushing up and down the hall. I didn't even know where I was anymore. I didn't even know who I was anymore. It was as if I was dying along with you. If you went, I did too.
Those freezing cold fingers were stroking my hand again. A finger trailed over my knuckles and slowly traced a circular pattern onto the back of my hand. The person holding my hand was also leaning upon my shoulder, his breathing shallow.
"Nick, you still with us?" a male voice asked me. I blinked, trying to focus, but it hurt. I wanted to wallow in a sea of unconsciousness, but I wasn't allowed. No, if you were dying, I had to be here to witness it. To live through it while you didn't. To breathe when you couldn't.
"He looks ill," another male voice said, younger than the first. The woman continued to sob, her head shaking slightly on my shoulder.
"Grissom, should we get someone to attend to him?" the younger voice asked worryingly, and I vaguely realized that it was Greg speaking.
"I—I … I just don't know what to do, Greg," Grissom muttered in response as loud footsteps practically ran by. "I just don't know what to do."
The defeat, the fear, and the grief in Grissom's voice made me truly wake up. Grissom was afraid … Grissom, the man who sometimes seemed heartless, the man who sometimes seemed to be unattached to the world. He was afraid.
You were doomed, and everyone knew it.
"Should I take him home?" Greg asked anxiously, still stroking my hand.
"Nick, you awake?"
Were my eyes even open? Was I dreaming all of this? Was this just a sick, twisted nightmare? Was I even alive?
"He looks sick, Grissom. He should be resting."
Catherine wouldn't stop crying. More voices came and went. I heard Grissom sigh.
"Take him home then. I'll call as soon as I hear anything. Come back as soon as you can."
Greg pulled gently on my hand and my body moved without any intervention. I was a dog on a leash, being led by my master. I gazed blearily around at my world, somehow amazed that I was here.
I was in a light green hallway. The linoleum was green and so were the walls. We had just been sitting on semi-soft chairs beside a table topped with old magazines. We must have been outside the surgery room.
Grissom cast me a glance before taking my spot, putting an arm around the hysterical Catherine.
Greg pulled me onwards, and again I followed. My life wasn't my own anymore. I had no say in what happened.
Step after step.
We had left the noise of the hospital behind and I could feel a chilly breeze blow across my face. We had entered an outdoor parking lot. To me all the colors looked dull, and everything came across as gray. No more colors … nothing. The outside world had faded to gray, just like my heart.
I shut my eyes, blocking out the light, trying to hide from everything. Greg kept gently pulling on my hand as he led me towards his car, and I didn't stumble or falter once.
I heard a vehicle door open, and I opened my eyes as Greg helped me get into the front seat of his Honda Accord. Once I was sitting, he started to buckle me up, but I held up my hand.
"I can buckle myself in," I mumbled. Greg's slightly shocked face swam in front of my vision as I wearily pulled the seat belt across myself, trying in vain to put it in the buckle. Greg watched my struggle silently for a moment before reaching over and softly putting it in the hole.
"I thought you were out of it," he said, his voice almost expressionless.
I didn't have a response, so I just put my head back against the head rest, the sights in front of my eyes spinning. I quickly closed my eyes, trying to resist the feeling of nausea.
"Nick, are you feeling sick?" Greg asked, putting a hand to my forehead. "You feel really cold, we should get to your house so you can lie down."
Greg shut the passenger door and half-ran around to the driver's side. He slid in swiftly and put the key in the ignition.
"I can't just leave him," I croaked, feeling the car start to hum. Abruptly the vehicle was shut off.
"You aren't feeling well, Nick. Warrick would want you to go lie down and try to feel better."
"He never left my side, Greg. When I was in the hospital, every time I opened my eyes he was there. What if … what if he opens his eyes one last time, and I'm not there? What if he needs someone to hold his hand, and I'm not there? I—I need him, and he needs me. I can't leave him," I whispered, a buzzing in the back of my mind. I couldn't keep hiding from my feelings, and sooner or later they were going to break free.
Greg sighed, and moved slightly. I opened my eyes, and from my peripheral vision I could see him looking at me.
"I—I'm sorry, Nick. I don't know what to do. I try to—to do something, and it just never seems to work anymore. I'm sorry. If you're sure, we'll go back to the hospital as fast as we can," Greg said, his emotion thickening his voice.
I nodded and blinked to clear my vision as I unbuckled and opened the door.
Greg met me around on my side, and he held my hand as we walked.
"I want to be there for Warrick, too," he murmured softly, almost to himself. "I—I never really got to know him, and now … now it could be too late. We were really only co-workers, yet he was friends with a lot of different people at the lab. It—it might be too late for me to get to know him."
Too late … too late …
The words echoed in my mind, louder at first then getting quieter and quieter until I almost couldn't hear them.
Too late …
What if it was too late for anyone to save him? Too late for the doctors … too late for even a miracle?
Too late for God.
We were at the front of the hospital, and the doors swished open as we entered the cool building … the building that smelled like disinfectant and illness.
All the halls looked the same, and I didn't really know where we were going, but Greg did. The whole time he held my hand and directed me without saying a word.
"Nick? Greg?" Grissom said, rising to his feet to greet us when we had reached the chairs outside the surgery room. "I thought—"
"I can't leave him," I told my supervisor loudly, gazing at him steadily. Grissom nodded once, then sat back down beside Catherine. She appeared to be unconscious, her head resting on her right shoulder.
"Is she—" Greg began, but Grissom cut him off.
"She's sleeping. Her emotions tired her out, and that exhaustion finally let her sleep. She'll have some release from it all, at least for a while."
Greg sighed softly and let go of my hand.
"Excuse me," he said to a nurse passing by. "We need two more chairs."
"I'll ask the janitor to get you some, sir. It'll only take a few minutes," the woman replied, her voice business-like, but it still held an undercurrent of warmth.
"Thank you, I appreciate it," Greg told her, and with a click of her black shoes she was gone.
I still hadn't moved from where I was standing, staring brazenly at the large white doors to the room marked 'Surgery'.
"Have you heard anything about how—"
The ringing of Grissom's cell phone interrupted me. My supervisor checked the name on the front, and then flipped the phone open swiftly.
"It's Sara," he told us quickly before returning his attention to the caller. "He's in surgery. … Sunrise Hospital. … Yes. … We're all here, just waiting. … Okay, see you soon." He hung up and closed the phone.
"Sara said she would be here as soon as she could. I called her already, and she was on the plane now. I don't know if she'll get here before—" Grissom stopped short, his eyes getting a teary look.
Greg reached over and awkwardly patted his supervisor on the shoulder.
"Maybe he—he'll make it. He knows that—that …" Greg's words trailed off as he let his hand fall limply to his side.
"He knows that we're all out here, waiting for him. He knows that this … this isn't his time to go. That there are people who love him, and he can't just leave us," I forced out, my words sounding harsh and cruel. "He can't leave me; I'm not ready for him to go yet."
"Nick," Greg murmured, moving closer to me, and I felt his hand hold mine again, "none of us are ready for him to go yet. But sometimes … sometimes it isn't up to us."
"So you're saying we should just let him go? That we should just give up hoping that he'll be okay?" I cried, wrenching my hand out of his.
Fresh tears sprang to Greg's eyes.
"No one's saying that, Nick," Grissom told me.
I swore loudly and spun on the spot, intending to walk away when a short man with a cart of chairs walked up to me.
"Here are you chairs, sir, and can you please keep your language to yourself? This is a place of healing and peace," the janitor said shortly. He unloaded the chairs and left.
"Are you going to sit or leave?" Greg asked me, almost as if he was daring me to leave. "And if you choose to leave, then you'll just be leaving Warrick, too."
I sat.
Greg took the chair to my left, and he continued to stare at me with those hurt eyes.
"We aren't going to give up, Nick," he murmured. "Even if he—he doesn't make it, we still won't give up hope that somehow he'll be okay. Even years later, that hope will still be alive, but it'll slowly fade. But not now. Not while Warrick's still alive."
I nodded jerkily, my lips trembling. An onset of emotion was lying in wait behind my eyelids, getting closer to the surface with every passing moment.
I glanced over at Catherine and I felt a tear come to my eye. She was sleeping with a small smile on her face, completely at peace with the world. Her head was now on Grissom's shoulder, and he also had his arm around her.
"I never saw this coming," I muttered, turning to gaze at Greg's pale face.
He wiped his eyes and sniffed once.
"I didn't either. None of us did. It was as if last night was too perfect. Too happy. Too good, and it couldn't last."
"I guess it was."
We fell silent, and the quiet seemed to stretch on for miles before I couldn't stand it any longer.
"Do … do you think he'll be okay?"
Greg rubbed his eyes.
"I don't know, Nick. I want to say he'll be okay, but I can't. I can't say he's gone for sure, either. No one knows. He's right in the middle," he replied tiredly.
"I just wish we knew."
"I do too, Nicky. But no one does. We'll all just have to wait and see. Wait for good news, or wait for the bad."
Wait and see …
What if the doctors said you would never be able to walk again?
What if they said you would be a vegetable for the rest of your life?
What if … what if you would never wake up?
What if you left me forever?
Finally the tears came. They splashed over my bottom eyelashes and raced down my cheeks. My shoulders started to quake, and my lips shook.
I couldn't hold it in any longer.
Greg reached over and put his arm around me, pulling my body close to his.
All we could do was wait and see, and that wasn't good enough.
It wasn't good enough.