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Hello! Back again! Third Chapter of Senses Working Overtime! Hope you enjoy! Drop me a line!
Disclaimer: I own nothing!
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3:46am
Catherine released Grissom's hand from hers.
Her hands became shaky.
Her heart began to race rapidly. Could this honestly be happening? Could one of her closest and dearest friends be dying right in front of her eyes? Her feet began to move towards the entrance again, this time at a faster pace.
"No," she said with a hushed tone.
Grissom's mouth became dry. His throat began to close up and he felt the tears welling up in his eyes. He had been in this business for too long to not know what was going on. The way they were scrambling, falling over themselves to help this victim. It all pointed clearly to what Grissom and Catherine truly knew in their hearts. Warrick was dead.
They rushed into the emergency room and turned down the many corridors until they found a desk with an elderly woman sitting behind it. Her name was Arlene and seemed to be quite suited for the position. She was typing away on her computer until she saw the two storm into the office.
"Hi, how may I help you?" Arlene asked, her eyes wandering from Gil to Catherine.
"We're looking for a patient," Grissom said as he flashed his CSI badge.
"His name is Warrick Brown," Catherine added as she fumbled with hers.
"Let me check here," Arlene said as she began typing on the keyboard again.
The search took a mere 10 seconds, but to Grissom and Catherine it felt like eternity.
Catherine nervously tapped her fingers on the counter above the computer.
"Could you speed it up a little bit please," Catherine asked impatiently as she rolled her eyes.
"Just one more second," she replied as she clicked away.
In the distance, Grissom and Catherine heard the faint sound of a flat line. It sounded like a million decibels of feedback in their ears. Grissom turned around and faced Catherine. Tears automatically began to stream down her face. They took off in the direction of the ear-piercing sound.
"He was just brought into the Emergency Room! You can't go back there!" Arlene yelled as she watched them sprint towards the doors.
Two security guards caught them just in time before they ran into the restricted area.
"Whoa, whoa now," said the younger of the two men. "You can't go running into there."
"Let me go!" Catherine yelled as she fought the other. "I have to get in there; you don't understand."
"One of our guys is in there," Grissom pleaded. "You have to let us in!"
"I'm sorry but we can't let you go back there," the first guard replied. "It'll be safer for everyone involved if you just stay out here." Moving across the room, he sat Grissom and Catherine down into two empty waiting room chairs.
By this point, everyone in the room was staring at them.
"Let them through," Brass said as he came in through the doors, flashing his badge.
"But, sir," the guard said.
"But nothing. If you get in my way one more time, I'll make sure that you won't even get hired to write parking tickets. Do I make myself clear?" Brass said with a tone that neither Grissom nor Catherine had heard before.
"Be my guest," the guard said as he stepped aside, allowing the three of them to walk through.
The walked briskly passed many doctors, causing them to turn their heads and shout orders.
"You can't be in here!"
"Get security!"
"What in the hell do you think you're doing?"
None of these questions affected them. They were on a mission, and not one doctor was going to stop them. They began to look through the glass walls of each emergency room.
One room had a child being given CPR as she lay motionless on the gurney.
Another had an old man, being given a shot of adrenaline, which would hopefully cause his heart to beat again.
The third room caught their attention.
There lay Nick.
Pale and lifeless.
His arm was worse than what they had imagined. They thought he would be given stitches, maybe a cast. But, they never imagined that he would be given a blood transfusion for his wounds. Although they cared about Nicky, they could see that his heart was beating. They knew he was in much better shape than Warrick was.
They kept walking, looking into each room for a familiar face.
The final two rooms had the patients covered with white sheets.
The room on the left was empty. No nurses. No attendants. No one.
The room on the right showed a few nurses gathering up material and cleaning up the room.
The hallway became heavy and the air thick. The three stood there, looking from room to room. The room began to spin as the reality of it all began to sink in. Warrick is in one of these rooms.
"Alright guys. I talked to the boss," the security guard said, "and you guys can't be in here. I'm going to have to ask you to return to the waiting room."
The three stood there as if he had said nothing. They had to know. They had to find out which room he was in. It wouldn't bring him back, but it would somehow, eerily, ease the pain in their hearts.
As the nurse on the right was cleaning up, she had dropped a piece of gauze on the floor. As she bent to pick it up, she accidentally moved the sheet, causing it to uncover part of the victim's head.
Catherine looked to the room on the right and her heart rate jumped. She had recognized something about the patient in the room to the right.
"Oh," she said before the covered her mouth with her hand. She rushed between Grissom, Brass, and the guard and made her way to the outside.
Grissom, anxious to see what she saw, turned his head to look at the room.
Gil became breathless. He attempted to allow air into his lungs, but his mind was paralyzed. What he saw was permanently tattooed on his mind.
Warrick's curly hair and part of his forehead stuck out from underneath the sheet.
His skin.
So, pale.
So, cold looking.
So, lifeless.
"Oh, Warrick," he said as he walked out of the hallway. He glanced at his watch.
3:49
Brass stood there. Speechless. He was unable to form a word or even a thought. This was it. Their worst nightmare had become a horrible reality. One of their colleagues, friends, had been slain. The one thing they had never expected was now taking over their lives like a disease. Ravishing their emotions, eating their spirits. What was once a team was now a broken mess, unable to be fixed. Unable to cease the pain that they would inevitably feel as they attempted to put the pieces back together.
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Catherine sped down the hallway passed the waiting room, passed the receptionist desk and into the dark, open air. She took a deep breath as her body began to feel weak. It was as if something had her by her throat, capsizing all the air out her trachea. She felt as if her lungs would pop. She found a bench outside and collapsed onto it.
She sat. Head down. Hands dangling on the sides of her legs. Defeated.
Her breathing became irregular. She could feel a pit in her stomach forming. This pit was digging a hole into her gut, she grabbed her stomach and prepared for what she knew was about to happen. She hopped off the bench, and walked two feet into the bushes.
The silent night was filled with the echoes of her gut-wrenching, dry heaves. As she vomited onto the cold, dry earth, she felt familiar hands grab her hair and hold it back. She knew that she had already barfed onto some of the extra strands that dangled by her face, but the person behind her didn't care.
She spit the last of it out and took another deep breath. She wiped her mouth with her sleeve as she closed her eyes. She turned around and found Grissom's firm shoulder there to hold her up. She buried her face into his jacket. She breathed deeply as she leaned on her friend.
This was what she was always used to. This is what Warrick was for her: a rock in the tumbling sea known as life. Problems that others would find trivial, Warrick found interesting, intriguing. He was her voice when she had cried so much that her throat would no longer function. He was her shield when Lindsay had hurt her so badly that she considered herself a failure as a parent. Warrick was there. Always.
And at this moment, he wasn't.
He was lying face up. Cold and alone.
Dead.
He had no one to share his troubles with, no one to shield him.
She took in a deep breath through her nose and expected to smell the same cologne that Warrick always wore.
Not this time. This time it smelt like, cold, stiff denim, and nothing more.
Realizing this, Catherine began to weep. She began to sob uncontrollably. Her tears and make-up smeared onto Grissom's jacket. But he didn't mind.
As Catherine, cried onto him, Gil placed his chin on top her head, closed his eyes, and wept with her. He held her tight not sure if he should let go. They stood there for what felt like hours comforting each other.
"Someone's gotta tell Sara," Catherine said, her head still buried in his arm.
Grissom swallowed. This was one of the unfortunate things that he knew to be true. Sara had to know. It was only right. He would want to be notified if something like this had happened, even if he had moved 4,000 miles away.
"And I just," Catherine said as she lifted her head, "I just…"
"Shhh. It's okay. It's okay," Grissom said as his mind raced, "I'll do it."
She shook her head, unable to say another word. He placed his arm around her, and they headed back inside. The automatic doors slid open causing a cold rush of air to surround them.
As they walked in, they saw Brass sitting in a chair, hunched over, speechless. He sat up straight every time a doctor walked out, hoping that they were there to update him on Nick's condition, and possibly give them a look into what happened to Warrick.
As soon as Brass saw them come in, he stood up, and shrugged.
"It's just…" Brass said before his voice became shaky. "Sometimes the good die."
Catherine shook her head and covered her face with her hand in an attempt to shield them from seeing her face. Brass grabbed Cath by the shoulder and pulled her into an embrace. She wrapped her arms around the human teddy bear and let out a sigh.
"Do you know anything yet?" Grissom asked as Brass and Catherine departed.
"Nothing yet," Brass said wiping a tear from his eye before it had the audacity to fall down his cheek.
The three exchange glances before taking seats in a circle.
"Anything on Nick?" Catherine asked as she crossed her arms.
"Nope. The doctor should be out any minute now. You think with our tax dollars that we could pay for faster responses than this," Brass muttered as he threw his arms in the air.
A few minutes of silence passed. All they could hear was their inner thoughts, tormenting them, trying to find a way through their lips and out of their mouths, but no. They sat there tight lipped and tortured. Just as Grissom thought of something helpful to say, a doctor walked through the doors and into their direction.
"Captain Brass?" he asked as he extended his arm.
"Yes. Uh, yes that's me." Brass answered as he stood up and shook the man's hand.
"I'm so very sorry for your loss," the doctor stated as he withdrew his hand. "I hope you know we did everything we possibly could do to save him."
"Do you know the COD?" Brass questioned.
"In my personal opinion," the doctor started as he opened up the manila folder, "I would have to say a severe hemorrhage from the neck. He lost so much blood, so fast. There was virtually nothing we could do."
"OK," Catherine said as she absorbed it all.
"Does he have any family?" the doctor asked.
In the middle of their own emotions, they had forgotten that Warrick's grandmother needed to be contacted. He was so close to her. They knew that this was going to break her heart.
"Yes he does." Grissom answered, "But I'll take care of that."
Silence fell. Everything that was happening was twirling around them.
"What about Nick how's he doing? When can we see him?" Catherine asked while looking at the doctor.
"Well, Nick also suffered a huge loss of blood. The broken window destroyed three ligaments in his arm."
The doctor made a face.
"What's that face for?" Catherine shouted at the doctor.
"The damage is so severe that there is a slim chance he will ever fully gain mobility of his arm," the doctor continued.
"Jesus," Brass exclaimed as he rubbed his hands over his balding head.
"You can see him as soon as the nurse is finished up with him. He's been given a sedative that will most likely keep him knocked out for a few hours," the doctor finished. "Again, I can't apologize enough for your loss." The doctor walked away and left them alone again.
They couldn't sit here forever feeling sorry for themselves. There were things that needed to be done. Both Greg and Sara needed to be contacted. Warrick's grandmother needed to be told. Someone had to be here for Nick when he woke up. Someone needed to team up with Ecklie and McKeen and find out what the hell happened. There were so many tasks, that wouldn't be done if they wasted anymore time.
"I'll call Greg again and try to get a hold of Sara," Grissom said until Catherine interrupted.
"And I'll stop by Warrick's grandmother's. Someone needs to tell her," Catherine stated with a sympathetic face."
"I'd love to stay here with Nick, but I've gotta get down to the scene. There's so much to do," Brass said as he buttoned his suit.
"Well we have a couple hours until…" Grissom stopped. He felt a vibration in his pocket. He pulled it out. The caller ID verified who Grissom knew it was.
He held out the phone for Brass and Catherine to see.
"Greg" was lit up with a blue glow.
Grissom made his way outside, realizing that cell phones were banned inside the building.
He walked past the receptionist desk and out the double doors.
"Grissom," he answered like he always did.
"Hey, it's Greg. You said something's going on. You sounded…" Greg said before pausing, "Scared or something. What's going on?"
"Greg, what I'm about to tell you may sound shocking, or even, fake, but I need you to listen." Grissom stated before taking a deep breath. "Warrick…"
He couldn't finish the statement. It was almost as if saying it only confirmed what he had feared all these years. Saying it out loud was the hardest thing.
"Warrick's what?" Greg asked. "Grissom, you need to tell what's going on."
"Warrick's dead."
There. It was out. He said it. It was done.
"What do you mean Warrick's dead? How? When?!" Greg became frantic.
"He was shot to death outside Sal's. Nick found him."
There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. Grissom even checked to see if he had lost the call. Greg was still there, but he just couldn't find the words to say. All Grissom could hear was heavy breathing. He could tell that Greg had taken the phone away from his face so that Grissom couldn't hear him crying.
"I'll be home soon," Greg said before he clicked the phone off.
Grissom closed the phone. The way Greg ended the conversation was so out of character. But Grissom didn't bother to try and analyze it. Greg was still absorbing it. He had a right to be upset.
He went to put the phone into his pocket, until he realized he had one more call to make. With hesitant fingers, he went through his contacts. He found the number of the one person he felt that he needed to talk to.
He waited for a few minutes and pushed the send button. He put the phone to his ear and silently hoped that he would catch her voicemail. He was almost there. One ring and he would be speaking with her automated voice. But alas, she answered the receiver.
"Hello?" She asked calmly.
No answer. Grissom couldn't find the words to say.
"Hello?" she asked again.
This time he'd find the courage to speak.
"Sss…Sara," he stated rather than asking.
The familiar voice on the other end made her hair stand on end. Goosebumps covered her body.
Her old life was beckoning her.
Would she answer…
… or simply let it go?
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Hope you enjoyed!