Just a quick note to let you all know that I ABSOLUTELY have NOT abandoned this fic. I was planning on writing this section last Sunday and then posting it, but when I got home all of my electricity was out! It took my landlord four (count 'em…FOUR!) days to get things straightened out, and coupled with the fact that my car was at the mechanic's (for two weeks!) and with the return back to the classroom, I was unable to write for a little while.

But here's chapter 10, and barring any other weirdness, chapter 11 should be out very soon (I'm starting on it tonight).

Thanks for your patience and your continued, lovely feedback!

Emrys

P.S. Remember…I'm not a doctor! There are probably a TON of medical mistakes here, but don't flame me for them…PLEASE!

Daddy's Little Girl – Chapter 10

"Mr. Grissom," Nick's mother called to Gil softly but paused when he didn't immediately respond to her. She moved to sit beside him and put a hand on his shoulder in a gesture that commanded notice. Grissom looked into her face and was painfully reminded of the last time they had sat together in a hospital waiting room. She had worn that same agonized look on her face for days.

"Gil," she continued desperately once she had his attention. "What do you mean when you say 'cardiac complications?' He was fine when we were allowed to see him earlier," she pointed vaguely in the direction of Nick's father as she spoke.

Grissom sighed heavily and turned away from Mrs. Stokes. "Cardiac complications are not uncommon in progressive cyanide poisoning," he explained with a vague air to his voice. "He developed an arrhythmia while I was sitting with him," Grissom suddenly felt the need to apologize to Nick's parents. On some level he knew that the urge was unreasonable, but he couldn't help thinking that the few minutes that he had been allowed to sit with Nick were precious time that had been stolen away from his parents. He resisted the irrationality of an apology and offered them something else instead.

"We all know how strong Nick is. He'll see this through," Grissom whispered hollowly and clasped Mrs. Stokes' hand briefly before catching Catherine's eye. "Catherine I'm tired," he said truthfully and then eyed Nick's parents awkwardly. "Will you walk me back to my room?" he asked with a pointed look.

It took Catherine only a moment to receive his silent message. "Oh, yeah, sure," she stuttered clumsily. "I'll be right back," she offered to Nick's parents, and they smiled kindly at her in response.

"We'll be sure to let you know if anything about Nick's condition changes," Judge Stokes replied with an unreadable expression on his face. As Grissom passed him on his way out of the waiting room, Nick's father stopped him and offered out his hand. Grissom took it and the two men shook hands. "Thanks for finding my boy again," Judge Stokes murmured in a surprisingly broken voice.

Grissom was beyond words as he left the room.

888

Catherine started her report with no prompting from Grissom as soon as they stepped out of the waiting area. He was grateful, because he still found himself affected by Judge Stokes' gesture.

"I don't know how much the doctors have told you," she began. "But Nick's blood is teeming with the by-products of solanine. He's severely dehydrated, and that's compromising the efforts to get his cellular respiration back on track. He'll need to be intubated for a few days until they can completely clear his system and normal functioning of his cytochromes return."

Grissom nodded. The doctors had explained this to him before they had allowed him to visit with Nick. "But he's expected to live," he stated while forcing himself to ignore the fact that the doctor's were struggling at this very moment to restore Nick's cardiac functions to something resembling normal.

"Yes, or at least he was up until this latest event," Catherine said and clenched her fists. Grissom recognized that she was scared, and suddenly his assertion that Nick would live seemed wholly optimistic. But he couldn't afford to think pessimistically right now, and neither could she.

"Catherine, we're lucky that she chose to use plant derivatives for her source of cyanide. They work slower than gaseous forms of the poison, and despite the dehydration and the presence of the other drugs we got to Nick in time. If he makes it through the next 48 hours, the doctors expect him to survive." Grissom purposefully neglected to mention any of the further complications that Nick would most likely have to deal with even if he recovered from the initial poisoning, but he could tell by the narrowing of Catherine's eyes that she was well aware of the dangers yet to be faced.

She opened her mouth as if to say as much, but then seemed to think better of it. Instead, she decided to focus on the hallucinogen that had been found in Nick's blood samples.

"Yeah, about that third drug," Catherine said, and Grissom watched as she pushed her fear away from the foreground of her thoughts. "It's actually LSD, but we haven't been able to ascertain its source yet," her voice sounded stronger, and Grissom was relieved. He was unaccustomed to seeing her so shaken.

"It's probably another plant derivative. If Kelly is unwilling to tell us what she used, we'll have to have someone run a catalog of hallucinogenic plants and compare them to the species in her garden."

Catherine suddenly turned to face him, and he saw shock in her eyes.

"I thought you knew," she said incredulously and then seemed to be at a loss for words.

"Knew what?" he prompted.

"Kelly Gordon poisoned herself with a massive dose of cyanide," she recounted bluntly. "She died on the scene, and Doc finished the autopsy a few hours ago."

Grissom felt a series of complex emotions surge through him at her statement, and he was momentarily taken aback as he identified how he felt about the unexpected news. Although it was a relief to know that the woman would no longer be haunting them, at least with her physical presence, he couldn't help but feel that they had all been slighted by her easy exit from the macabre events that she had precipitated. Desiring retribution was an emotional outcome that was unfamiliar to Grissom, and he pushed his thoughts aside for a later time so that he could now concentrate on what Catherine was saying.

"C.O.D. was cyanide poisoning, and there were no additional significant findings other than…." Catherine faltered but attempted to continue when Grissom looked sharply at her. "Gri…Grissom," she stammered as she seriously considered the implications of the report that had been given to her by Warrick over the phone. "Gil, there was evidence that she had been sexually active within the past 24 hours," she said while staring sadly at the floor.

Caught up in surprise, Grissom suddenly stopped walking. "What?" he asked unbelievingly.

Anger welled up in Catherine despite her best efforts to quell the emotion. "They found semen, Grissom. All over her, inside and out," her voice was a furious rasp.

Grissom took an urgent step toward her and extended his hand in an attempt to calm her. She saw how his hand suddenly began shaking as it stretched out to her, and she moved out of his reach. "Catherine…."

Being privy to information that Nick had given only to her while working a case together so long ago, Catherine knew that there were no words that could comfort her. She refused to acknowledge Grissom's efforts and interrupted any further consolation by continuing her report in a strained voice.

"Greg is running the DNA," she stated through clenched teeth. "He refuses to leave the job to anyone else, and he should be calling me with the results any minute now. Warrick and Sara were still working the scene when they checked in a couple of hours ago. Warrick told me that the whole upstairs is a treasure trove of evidence. It's going to take a while to process it all, but it's pretty obvious that Kelly Gordon had planned this for quite some time. She was obsessed with Nick. Had photographs of him plastered all over the walls of one of the rooms."

Grissom nodded. "I saw an entire laboratory in the room where we found Nick," he added as they both proceeded on their trek back to his room. Grissom suddenly wanted to turn around and return to the family room to wait there for news of Nick's condition. Getting Catherine to walk him back to his room had only been a ruse to get her alone in the first place. Now that they had shared information, he felt like he belonged in the waiting room so that he could learn of Nick's condition as soon as the doctors knew anything. He was about to suggest to Catherine that they turn around, when she spoke with surprising acrimony tinting her voice.

"She was insane," Catherine said bitterly. "I don't need to see all of the evidence to know…."

She was interrupted when her cell phone rang. She hastily grabbed it out of her purse and frowned when she saw the number displayed by caller identification. Sending a quick, anxious glance to Grissom, she popped open the phone and brought it to her ear.

"What do you have, Greg?" she asked shakily. Grissom studied her as she listened intently to the voice on the other side of the phone and was not happy with what he saw. Her jaw tensed as she paled considerably, and he saw her working too hard to maintain her composure. She nodded once and ran a shaky hand roughly through her hair.

"Okay, Greg. I'll talk to you later," she finally said and then snapped the phone shut. Tears leaked slowly from her eyes, and she wiped at them furiously. "It was Nick's DNA," she announced plainly. Grissom almost didn't catch her words, because the heavy pounding of his own heart seemed to be roaring in his ears.

"Catherine…." He said in a weak effort to again offer her some comfort.

She stalked away from him in a fury of scarlet and salty tears.

888

In Kelly Gordon's house, Warrick Brown opened the top drawer of a dresser that stood innocuously in the corner of the stuffy bedroom he had volunteered to process. He shuffled through a startling array of socks and found a leather-bound journal. Lifting the journal with interest from its spot within the soft confines, he almost missed what lay beneath.

When he saw them, the journal dropped from out of his suddenly numb fingers.

As he reached into the drawer and drew out the photographs, sensation returned in a flood to his digits.

They burned.