Sorry for the delay in posting this next chapter! Uni really cuts into my writing time. But, another chapter up and please, please review.
Chapter Four
True to the paramedics word, it was only a short time later when they arrived at Desert Palms hospital.
Grissom trotted behind the stretcher as they wheeled Nick through the doors to the emergency room, but was stopped by a nurse before he could enter the cubicle and was escorted to the almost full waiting room.
And there he was, six hours later, still waiting.
"Gil Grissom?"
Grissom looked up from a National Geographic magazine he had located, cover missing and pages torn. A receptionist was gesturing for him to follow through the door which separated the waiting room from the ordered chaos of a busy hospitals emergency cubicles.
"Mr Grissom," she started, "Mr Stokes has asked for you to be listed as his point of contact. If you would like to come through, his treating doctor would like a word with you. We're preparing Mr Stokes for transfer to the wards now. We have a bed for him on ward 4C."
Grissom looked at her in surprise.
"You're admitting him?" he asked. He realised that he had fully expected that after a six hour wait, Nick would have been walking out to the waiting room ready for a lift home. He didn't really know why he thought they would discharge him after the severity of the reaction, but he had honestly believed he had been waiting to drive Nick home.
The receptionist stopped and glanced at him.
"Yes, Mr Grissom, we are admitting him at least for the next couple of nights."
Grissom looked even more surprised.
"Mr Stokes' doctor will explain the situation."
Grissom frowned. The situation?
The receptionist pointed Grissom to the entrance to a cubicle. The curtain was pulled around and he could hear a woman's voice speaking in soft tones and the gravelly, tired voice of his colleagues answer.
"Mr....Grissom?" a tall dark haired man asked.
He wore a white coat and had a stethoscope draped lazily around his neck. Obviously 'the doctor' that the receptionist had referred to.
Grissom nodded and extended a hand in greeting.
"Yes, doctor. I'm Nick's supervisor. How's he doing?" Grissom replied.
The doctor raised his eyebrows slightly and reached a hand out to Grissom's arm, encouraging him to move closer to the wall and out of the way of an EKG monitor being wheeled being with some urgency down the corridor. Grissom shuffled out of the way quickly.
He continued as if the interruption had not occurred.
"Mr Stokes has had - as I know you witnessed – a severe allergic reaction to a hornet's sting. I've read his notes from his previous admission and it seems that the fireant exposure back in May has caused his body to respond with severe anaphylaxis with the introduction of any venom – being fireant, bee or wasp."
Grissom nodded slightly as he took in the information.
"I have suggested strongly to Mr Stokes that we admit him and do a series of skin tests over the next day or two to ascertain what other factors will trigger this type of reaction." the doctor said. "Once we isolate the venoms which will trigger the allergic response, we can –hopefully – start desensitising him to try and reduce the likelihood of further life-threatening attacks of anaphylaxis in the future."
Grissom nodded, closed his eyes for a second and brought a hand up to pinch at the sockets in tiredness. It hit him all of a sudden just how tired he was.
He opened his eyes again and stretched the muscles of his eyebrows before offering the doctor a weary smile.
"Thank you, doctor." he replied. "Can I see him yet?"
The doctor nodded and directed Grissom to the still curtained off cubicle.
"Sure," he said, "his nurse is just getting him ready for transfer, but you can see him for a minute before they head up to the ward."
The doctor turned and walked away and left Grissom standing awkwardly behind the curtain.
It felt so very familiar to six months earlier, when he had stood in the same hospital's Emergency Department waiting to see Nick after his rescue.
And yet, it felt so different.
There were parents here then. Nick's welfare had ceased to be his responsibility once he was pulled from the grave and packed off to hospital in the back of the ambulance.
Sure, he had been concerned about him. He had visited him several times in the hospital. He had gone to great lengths to work with psychologists and medical professionals – granted, much of it done without Nick's knowledge – to make sure he was fit physically and mentally to return to work.
He had controlled the controllables.
But this....this was different.
Grissom no longer had control of this situation. He had been one of the crowd six months earlier. He had been able to blend in with the many concerned friends. He had been able to camouflage his social inadequacies by following the lead of the others.
This time was different.
He was alone.
Nick was his responsibility.