Just a short note to let you know that FINALLY the comfort begins. Only a little bit in this chapter, but more will come!
Thanks again for all of your feedback. I wish that I had more time to reply to each of you individually, but that's not the case. Instead, I have to hope that you know that I appreciate every iota of every review that you send me!
Oh yeah, and…once again…I'm not part of the medical profession, so please excuse any mistakes.
Take care,
Emrys
Daddy's Little Girl – Chapter 9
When his eyes cleared, he saw Catherine standing in front of him with a compassionate smile playing around her lips.
"So you found him?" she asked simply. Her too smart eyes watched him carefully, and he began to pull himself together. He was thankful for her presence, because she was someone familiar in an otherwise unfamiliar situation. He knew how to act and react to her, and he felt himself returning to what he was, felt himself drawing upon his intelligence to make sense of the nonsensical. He needed to stop thinking about the broad reality of what had happened to Nick and focus on the smaller patterns that the evidence provided.
"Yeah," he said and looked around the room for the first time. A veritable chemistry laboratory was distributed about the small space, and he moved towards it with interest. Catherine stopped him by placing an authoritative and triple-gloved hand on his shoulder.
"Grissom, this area is contaminated with an unknown level of cyanide. You need to go downstairs and get washed up before they take you to the hospital for observation."
Grissom turned to the other CSI and for the first time noticed that she was suited up for a light biohazard contamination. She smiled cavalierly and posed her hands up and away from her body.
"It's the latest in CSI fashion wear," she said, playfully. She twirled a bit for him, and he found himself smiling despite the circumstances. "What do you think?"
Grissom nodded at the bulky and unflattering costume she had been forced to wear, and his smile broadened. "It's you."
"Gee, thanks," she said, sardonically. She paused, and Grissom noted that her brave smile wavered a bit as her lips involuntarily turned downwards and trembled. She turned away from him so that he couldn't see her distress.
"Tell me he was okay," Catherine whispered. He barely caught her words, but they almost tore apart his newly found calm.
He could not bring himself to lie to her, so he ignored the question instead.
"Where are Warrick and Sara?" he asked, hoping that she would play along.
She was quiet for a moment, and he felt her displeasure almost as if it were a palpable thing.
"They're outside suiting up," she unhappily responded after a while. She turned to face him and attempted to read his expression. He tried to maintain his composure, but apparently they had known each other for far too long because he saw the distress build in her face.
"Catherine…." he said.
"No, never mind. I'll find out soon enough. I can't stay. Nick's parents are catching the next flight from Dallas, but they won't be here until later this evening. Since you're tied up here, and I'm listed after you as an alternate on Nick's health care proxy, he needs me there. Sara and Warrick will run the scene as soon as it's cleared." Her words came out as a rush and were spoken in a controlled, matter-of-fact tone.
"They haven't cleared the scene yet?" Grissom was surprised. It felt like hours had passed since they had found Nick.
"The house itself is secure, but the garden hasn't been fully searched yet. They're out there now, but it's a big piece of property. It might take a while, and they haven't found Kelly yet. I'm here to get your ass downstairs so that they can decontaminate you and send you off for a mandatory 24 hour observation at the hospital."
"But…" Grissom began as he looked around the room. He wanted to process this evidence. It was the only way he could help Nick.
"No but's, Grissom. Downstairs, now." Catherine's voice brooked no argument, and Grissom found his composure returning.
"Yes, Ma'am," he said, good-naturedly and preceded her out of the room.
888
Kelly clung balefully to the slim trunk of the peach tree and attempted to hold back the vicious sobs that threatened to tear her apart. Taking a sip of the concoction in her hand, she looked reverently up into the tree's branches. The late afternoon sun drifted lazily through its bright green leaves, and she wished that she could touch them, wished that she could become part of them.
She had understood, far too late, that she was never going to make it out of the house before they came to bring her back to prison. And that just could not happen. Would not happen. So she had grabbed the suddenly precious leftovers of cyanide and had somehow made her way to the tree before the law had barged back into her life.
But, thinking about it, it occurred to her in a flash of sudden rationality that maybe she had known all along that this quest of hers would lead to a fatal level of finality. For weeks, she had worked far longer than necessary to extract enough cyanide from the peach pits to kill at least two people. It had been a laborious process, and it had been unnecessary to double the product if her sole intention was to destroy Nick Stokes alone. Additionally, she had left the excess in easy reach, and there had been no need to scramble in search of it prior to this escape to her garden.
But her tears were her biggest clue to the dawning realization that a part of her had all along been aware that she had a death wish. They had started shortly after ascending the stairs to Nick's room. Had drenched the glassware in the make shift lab and tempered her various potions with their saltiness. She remembered the sound of them as they splatted against Nick's face. They had been large and wet and were the portents of her death.
The sudden image of Nick's face covered in her tears erased any self-examination of her motivations, and she dwelled on the visual memory. Her sobs subsided a bit, and she easily swallowed several mouthfuls of the bitter extraction. She sank down closer to the scrub surrounding her tree when she heard the tell-tale sounds of authoritative footsteps coming closer to her, but all the time she treasured the image of her final work.
She had ruined him. That one last look at his face offered no doubt to that fact. He was broken beyond repair, and even if; and such a large 'if,' really; even if, he survived her poisons, he would always reap the detriments of her touch.
His heart would be like the fruit stone from which she had taken her poison. Small, hard, and empty.
With one final draw of the lethal draught, Kelly finished what would be the cause of her end. Her crying had completely subsided, and she allowed herself to sink further to the ground until she was lying completely supine.
A broad smile spread across her face when they finally found her.
She laughed a bit and waved at the featureless face that hovered above her.
Then she closed her eyes, and it was over.
888
Many hours later, something drew Nick to the close edge of consciousness. He drifted in and out for a while and only had intermittent moments to recognize the stimulus of his heightened awareness.
Someone was stroking his hair.
Panic seized him despite his lack of total alertness, and he tried to struggle against the touch of his sensitized skin.
888
Grissom sat beside Nick's bedside in ICU and made a careful study of the poisoned man's face. It was chalky white in color except for the slight tinge of blue that ringed his mouth and the growing bruise that marred the skin under his right eye. The tube that extended into his lungs was an obscene but necessary extension of Nick's mouth since it was the only means by which oxygen was able to flow into his chemically damaged body. Intravenous injections of various fluids that would hopefully counteract the effects of the cyanide poisoning and advanced dehydration that Nick was experiencing dripped slowly into tubing that had been inserted into his arms.
Grissom sighed heavily and dropped his head into his hands. He had managed to wrestle five minutes away from his own hospital room to see his colleague, but his time was almost up. He would have to return soon despite the fact that it had been ascertained that his exposure to the cyanide had been negligible at worst. So far he had experienced no ill effects and remained asymptomatic.
The same could not be said of Nick.
Nick reportedly had never regained consciousness once he had been removed from Kelly Gordon's house. The tox screen of his blood was both bizarre and frightening; it was a veritable pharmacological cornucopia. Oxygen deprivation due to the effects of the cyanide poisoning had gained a firm hold, and it was taking longer than expected to reverse.
Nick's prognosis was not good.
Feeling the stirring of despair, Grissom reached out and placed a gentle hand on Nick's head. Nick had grown his hair out a bit over the years, and Grissom pushed its sweaty strands back from out of the younger man's face. Too wrapped up in his thoughts, he continued the action without consciously thinking about it.
He needed to get to the crime scene and make sure that the evidence was processed correctly. It would be the only way that he could make sense of what had happened to Nick.
Grissom's concentration shifted when he noted the faster complaint of the heart monitor. He moved his gaze up to it and saw that Nick's heart rate had increased slightly. Nick's head shifted under his hand, and Grissom returned his attention to the man.
"Nick?" he asked, hoping that Nick was regaining consciousness.
Nick's heart rate continued to mount, and Grissom began to become alarmed.
"Nicky? Nicky, it's okay. You're all right now. It's all right."
Any further words that Grissom may have offered by way of comfort remained unuttered. As the monitor announced that Nick's heart was stuttering with arrythmia, Gil was pushed aside by a slew of medical personnel.
Suddenly a nurse was standing in front of him and ushering him out of the room.
"What's happening?" he asked her. His voice sounded calm and alien to his ears.
"He's acidotic, and it's affecting his heart," the nurse replied plainly. "We need to re-establish a normal rhythm. I'll escort you back to your room and come back when I have any news."
"No, let me stay here with the others," Grissom insisted as they passed by Catherine and both of Nick's parents, all of whom were pacing restlessly in a family waiting room. It was a relief to see Catherine. He had been kept in the dark about the happenings at the crime scene, and he needed to know what she knew.
The nurse looked skeptical, but slowed her forward progress.
"We both know that if I were affected by the cyanide, I'd be showing symptoms by now. Let me just stay. I'm the supervisor in charge of the crime scene investigation unit that is processing the scene where Nick's cyanide poisoning took place." Grissom indicated Catherine with a wave of his hand. "Ms. Willows will have information for me. I'd like to hear it while we wait for news on Nick."
The nurse still remained obviously hesitant, but she nodded anyway. "Fine. I'll be back as soon as I know anything about Mr. Stokes' condition."
"Condition?" Catherine asked, alarmed. She and Nick's parents had walked over to Grissom as the nurse hurried away, and it was apparent that they had heard the woman's comment. "What condition?"
Grissom saw no need in sugar coating the news to these people. They were all very strong individuals who would not appreciate an evasion of the truth.
"His heart. He's developed cardiac complications," he reported grimly, and then sat heavily into a corner chair. The seat was hard and uncomfortable, but he didn't mind.