Disclaimer: see chapter one.
Thanks to everyone for reviewing, you have no idea how much I appreciate every one I get - it really does make writing so worthwhile... ;o) And the fact that you take the time makes every review special.
Special thanks to my betas Bellabrew and Mrose. I know you have a life outside of literature that's why I appreciate that you take so much time and effort to read and edit my story.
It is important that you know that this story is actually complete. I have finished the full draft of it. It is typed and formatted for posting as well, we are just in the editorial process now, so I will not leave you hanging for eons.
Final note: This is set prior to GSR becoming canon I probably should have told you that before, but that would have spoiled all my fun.
Also all of the CSI characters are represented here, and a few new ones. Hope you enjoy this chapter. Please note that I did up the rating to M.
Chapter 10
There's an angel with her hand on my head
She say I got nothing to fear.
(Everlast – Whitey Ford sings the blues)
Sara's apartment
August 23, 4:30 am
This time Catherine was startled awake by a sharp rapping the front door. Her heart beating wildly in her chest, she walked on rubber legs over to the door. "Who is it?" She enquired and peeked through the peep hole.
"It's me, Nick. Open up before one of the neighbors calls the cops…"
The reddish-blonde CSI pulled the door open and allowed the younger man in. "Hell, she has some nosey neighbors… Don't these people ever sleep?" He asked his head swiveling back out towards the hallway, where down at the end a mound of dark hair peered out from another apartment. His southern drawl was thicker than usual indicting that he was pretty tired.
"Mmmmm, the joy of living in an apartment, no privacy and the neighbors hear everything. Especially the sex…" The reddish-blonde woman inhaled deeply as the handsome Texan wandered past with three coffees and a bag of pastries and popped them on the counter. The rich bold aroma of the coffee woke Catherine immediately and eagerly reached for the cup that Nick Stokes passed her.
"Is sleeping beauty awake?" He enquired, his eyes wandering around the apartment looking for any sign of his friend.
"No she's slept pretty much the whole time, me too actually." She took a sip of the coffee and moaned with pleasure. "There's a barf bucket beside her bed. When I woke her up was feeling pretty bad. I got her back to bed after a trip to the bathroom, but she asked that I put the waste basket there."
Nick grimaced. His heart went out to his Sara; she'd been through so much the past few days. Losing a lover, being hurt, and now apparently too sick to even eat. Grissom, had warned him about the nausea and vomiting, and had also mentioned that he and the Doc would be by after shift.
Reaching into the bag Catherine pulled out a chocolate croissant and sunk her teeth into it; her eyes studying the younger man in front of her as she ate. He looked drawn and tired, though he had managed to change from his earlier gray t-shirt into a tight black polo shirt and a fresh pair of jeans. Clearly he had gone home as instructed. They'd been on a brutal schedule lately, with barely time between shifts to shower and change. She took another bite. The chocolate was rich and sweet against the bold bitter taste of the coffee still left on her tongue.
"Mmmmm…" Catherine moaned again. "These are good." She held up the pastry, with one hand and grabbed her purse with the other. "I gotta go. Ecklie has been harassing me about some paperwork that has been misplaced since before we switched back to grave. I am due to spend the rest of the night in the file room searching for the damn stuff, if there's nothing going on." Flipping her wrist over, she checked her watch and nodded at the man in front of her. "She needs to get up now. Just wake her and let her go back to sleep. There are pain pills beside her bed. She can have two in two hours. Okay?"
"Yup." He dipped his head cowboy style at her and then locked the door behind her as she left. Taking a gulp of his coffee, he placed it on the counter and then went into the bedroom.
The room itself was no surprise to him, as he frequently dropped by to visit and had wandered in there a few times. The last time he'd visited he had helped her unpack the new furniture she'd bought. They'd christened the couches by hoeing down on pizza and beer while watching really bad cowboy movies. Of all of her friends he suspected that he was the most comfortable in her place, simply because he had been there the most. He wasn't sure if Catherine had ever been over, he new Greg and Warrick definitely hadn't, and Grissom, as always, was a mystery.
"Hey, sweet pea…" Picking up the garbage can, he noted two white gobs floating in a pool of saliva at the bottom of it. Inspecting the contents closely he dropped the can back on the floor and picked up the drug bottle. It looked as though she'd thrown up the pills she'd had earlier. "Hey…" He placed a warm hand on her shoulder and shook her slightly. "Wake up, buttercup."
A tired groan emanated from prone form on the bed. "Is that you, Nick?" She squinted through the darkness of the room trying to make out the face of the man beside her bed.
"Yeah, how you feelin'…?" One warm hand went out to wipe away the curls clinging to her damp forehead.
"Crappy…" She mumbled.
"You threw up your pills."
"Mmmm… nothing wants to stay down." Her dark eyes fluttered.
"Do you want some more?"
She shook her head groggily. "No. I'm not really in pain. Just stiff and tired…"
Dropping onto the bed beside her he took one cool hand in his. "Are you still dizzy? Gris said you have vertigo pretty bad."
She nodded. "Just like a permanent merry-go-round."
"He wanted me to tell you he'll be here around eight."
Another soft moan escaped her lips. "He thinks I need to be babied."
"You do and it's not a crime to need someone, Darlin'."
Sucking in a deep breath Sara turned her eyes him. "Yeah, but Grissom is not the person to do it. You and I both know that."
"I beg to differ." His hand absently massaged one delicate wrist. "He's been a distracted mess all night."
"He's just lost a loaner CSI. It's normal."
"He almost lost a permanent CSI…"
"Well that would have fucked up the work schedule, now wouldn't it?"
"Watch your language, Princess, or I'm gonna have to spank you. You know you mean more to Gris, than just an employee."
"Sure… whatever…" Sara shivered under the covers and the fact didn't escape her newest caregiver.
"You cold…?" He kneaded her hand, noting that it had gone from cool to clammy in a matter of seconds.
"I get these chills every now and then, like some one is dipping me in ice water." Groaning she shuddered, again. "This sucks."
"I brought an extra coffee… would that warm you up?"
"Maybe a little sip…"
"You got it…" Nick left the room and was back in less than a minute only to find his friend, sprawled at an odd angle, with her head hanging over the side of the bed. She was in the midst of dry heaving, her pale face dangling over the garbage can. "Damn, Sara…" He dropped down beside her on the bed, and pulled her hair out of her face.
"There's nothing left to come out." She let her head dangle forlornly off the side of the mattress. A warm hand rubbed her back, as the fresh hot bitterness of coffee in his fist assaulted her senses.
"Take a taste…" He waved it under her nose hoping the strong aroma would entice her. Instead it brought on another bout of dry heaves. "Oh man…" He leaned over and placed the coffee on the bedside table. "Maybe you should go back to the hospital…" His hand never left her back as he tried to massage some heat back into her.
"No… Just get me some dimenhydrinate. I think I have some in this medicine cabinet." She pointed to the closed door at the foot of her bed. It had been a bathroom, before she started the renovations. Now it was just a hollowed out shell. The only remaining thing in the room was actually the medicine cabinet, which was a beautiful old antique that she'd picked at a flea market. Normally, she didn't store anything in there but when she'd moved everything into the main bathroom before the construction, she'd left some of the little used medications.
"Dimenwhat?"
"Gravol..." Sara seemed content to leave her head hanging where it was. In fact by the time he had returned she was almost asleep in the same position.
"Come on buttercup, take these and back into bed." Slipping and arm under her he shifted her over and flipped her onto her back. She just moaned.
"Here…" He nudged her and squeezed her cheeks until her mouth popped open. Then he placing the pills on her tongue he held a glass of water to her lips and he waited until she took a liberal gulp. "That should settle your stomach…" He tugged the blanket back up around her and gripped her hand as she settled into a heavy slumber.
A few moments later her breathing had taken on the shallow even rhythm of someone sound asleep. Shoving her hair off her face he stared at her mesmerized by slow rise and fall of her chest and grateful that she was still alive. Releasing her hand from his he made his way back into the living room area and grabbing a throw, he tossed it on an over stuffed leather chair she'd recently purchased. He could curl up on the couch, but he wanted to be near her. This was more to calm any concerns he had about her other than anything born of real necessity, so he coaxed the chair back into her room and placed it beside her bed. Then moving the garbage pail aside he dropped into the chair and took her hand in his.
A soft whimper escaped Sara's lips and she rolled onto her side towards him. A second later she was once again calm and had slipped back into a contented slumber. Nick watched her sleep for about half an hour, at some point falling victim to his own exhaustion.
LV Crime Lab
August 23, 5:30 am
A loud knock on the door startled Grissom from the notes he was reading, causing him to drop the bulk of the file's paper in disarray on his desk. Casting a glance at the doorway, he rapidly picked up the report and shoved it back into the red folder that Nick had prepared for him earlier. Not that Catherine, in any way, would be able to tell what the papers were about from where she was standing. It was just that there was a residual sense of guilt that was gnawing at him for having asked his CSI to do a background check on Sara's dead lover and if Catherine were to find out, he was certain that she would read more into it than he really wanted to deal with at the moment.
"Did you finally manage to get in touch with Luke's parents?" She dropped her head to one side, trying to gauge his emotions. He'd been more than a little testy at Sara's earlier. If he'd had another night of frustration at the hands of the LAPD, she figured that, combined with a lack of sleep and too much coffee, would make Gil Grissom an unhappy camper, to say the least. That would make broaching the subject that had been plaguing her from the moment she left Sara's condo, a dangerous endeavor.
Pulling his glasses off, he dropped them onto his desk and massaged his eyes. The B&E had turned out to be something of a family feud situation, so shortly after they'd ascertained that the 'crime'was actually an angry brother in-law who had broken in to retrieve and item that in fact belonged to him. They'd left the police to sort out the details, packed up and returned to the lab. A message regarding Luke's family had been waiting for him by the time he'd reached the office. "LAPD finally managed to get in touch with them this evening. They just arrived home. Apparently…" He picked up the note pad in front of him and read off the names. "Mr. & Mrs. Wilbur Denton, were out of town for their 45th wedding anniversary. LAPD met them at arrivals and told them what had happened."
Catherine's face dropped. "Isn't this wonderful news to come back to? Did he have any siblings?"
Grissom shook his head solemnly. "No. He was their only child."
Catherine closed her eyes sadly and bobbed her head.
"They are flying into Vegas around mid afternoon today." Taking a cloth from his drawer he cleaned his glasses and slipped them back on. "How was Sara when you left her?"
The blonde CSI shook her head. "Not good. She threw up when I was there. There was nothing to come up, though."
Kneading his beard for a moment, he took in his friend's face and knew from the expression there, that there was something else she wanted to say. He also knew, from the grim set of her mouth, that she was leery of approaching the subject. "What?"
Catherine Willow's eyebrows shot up.
"If you have something to say, just say it. As long as it isn't along the same lines as the conversation we had earlier tonight." Grissom warned her.
She pursed her lips and then moved to drop into the chair in front of the aggravated entomologist. Letting out a heavy sigh she leaned forward and placed her elbows on the desk. "She was really bad when I left, Gil. Chills, dry heaves, weak…" Her head bobbed slightly on her hands. "I've been there before…"
"And…" Overtired and over-caffeinated Grissom just wanted her to get to the pointand leave so he could get back to the report.
"And I can tell you, that the only time I was ever as sick as she appears to be, was during my first trimester with Lindsay. I couldn't keep a damn thing down. I puked up everything I ate. Anything and everything would trigger my nausea." She leveled him with a somber gaze. "Did you ever consider that she might be pregnant?"
Gil Grissom's face had changed from its normal shade of tan, to something resembling a sheet of paper. "She can't be…"
Catherine laughed sardonically and shook her head. "Why not..? I'm sure they were going at it like bunnies and accidents happen, Gil."
"Sara's smarter than that. I'm sure she was using protection." He retorted.
"You can't know that or the state of their relationship. Maybe they were talking kids… But even if they weren't, have I ever told you how I got pregnant with Lindsay?"
"I assumed it was from having sex with Eddie." Grissom commented dryly.
"Don't be a smart ass, Gil." The petite blonde leaned back into her chair and crossed her legs. "I was on the pill and we always used condoms. Yet, sometime around September of '92, I realized I was a month late." She let her words sink in a moment. "Turns out, the pill dosage was too weak and we blew a rubber. Nine months and 36 hours of excruciating labor later, we welcomed our little girl into the world." Catherine folded her hands in her lap and stared up at her old friend. "Protection is a barrier, not a guarantee."
"Okay…?" Grissom's tightly clenched fists spread, as he held his hands out to the side in a gesture that indicated he didn't know what it was she was expecting him to do about her theory.
"Well you have to talk to her. She needs to be tested. There are chemicals we use in the lab here that can harm an unborn fetus; light sources, x-rays, diseases, and a variable of unknowns that can be devastating to a pregnant woman." Catherine leaned forward her eyes flashing. "And do you really want her out in the field if she is pregnant? She could be shot again, or attacked. When we enter a scene there is always a danger, do you really want to risk that something might happen to her and her unborn child."
"You are talking about it like it is a forgone conclusion…"
"As her supervisor it is your responsibility to find out for sure." Catherine stood up, and crossed her arms in front of her.
"She's right…"
Grissom rolled his eyes, and shot a scathing glance at the man standing in his doorway. "Conrad… Nice of you to stop by and eavesdrop…" He intoned darkly.
"I was on my way to find out if you have talked to the Dentons, yet. When I just happened to over hear what Catherine was saying and she is right. In fact, I can assure you that without being tested and suspecting that she might be pregnant, she will not be allowed back to work, until we have a conclusive result."
Gil Grissom glowered at the two people across from him and just shook his head. "Denton's parents have been notified and I'll take care of Sara." The words were spat out like they were decaying food.
"Good." Ecklie turned on his heel and stomped off down the hall.
"Sorry…" Catherine watched the man disappear down the corridor and then turned back to her old friend. "But it really is what's best for Sara." With that she turned on her heel and took off towards the file room. She didn't hear the clatter of metal on glass, as his mail opener flew across the room and bounced angrily off of one of the larger specimen jars nestled there.
TBC