Author's Note: I'm trying to shape some plot out of all this angst. Don't worry, I have the shadow of an idea of what I'm going to do. I'm going to finish this fic if it takes me all damn year (which I doubt, but... one never knows).
In Which Darkness Surrounds Them All
She blinked. It was dark. There were sirens. She turned her head to see her companion was still unconscious, bleeding profusely from a head wound, pinned between metal and leather. The car had hit the driver's side door and crushed her like she was made of glass.
As the blood slowly oozed out of her cracked skull, Sara reached out and touched the thick vermillion liquid. She looked at it, on her ghostly pale fingertips, and realized that she could feel Catherine's warmth slide down in between her fingers. It was the first thing she had felt, other than the nausea in a long time.
She put her fingers to her lips and licked them clean.
Someone was knocking on her window. He wore a uniform. Black, with a badge. She couldn't hear what he was saying, but she pointed at Catherine. "I think she's not OK," she said, in a normal, calm voice. The man didn't respond, so she rolled down her window and yelled, "My friend, I think she might be hurt!"
He heard her then and nodded, looking past her. "It's OK, we'll get to her," he said. "Are you OK?" She began to shake her head but he interrupted her denial. "What happened to your wrist?"
"My friend, she's not OK," Sara said again.
"We know, but right now we can't get to her."
"Why not?" Sara asked.
He frowned. "Ma'am, do you know what happened?"
"Smashed the car," Sara answered.
He held a hand to her forehead and called over his shoulder. "We have a head trauma over here!"
"No!" Sara protested, batting his hand away. "I'm sick, I have something..." And it moved again and she winced. "I need Mercy. Where's Mercy?"
"Is that your friend?"
"No." Sara was getting annoyed. Why didn't they understand? "The hospital. Is Nick there? Where's Mercy?"
"Hon, you're about two blocks away from there." He smiled, as though the news was reassuring.
Sara looked over her shoulder. "Catherine," she said. "She needs help."
"Look, your friend? She's trapped between two cars, OK? In order to get to her we need to go through you. Are you OK to move?"
In response, she jumped out of the car without missing a beat and looked back at Catherine with an ache in her heart. "Make sure she's still breathing!" she called as he climbed into the passenger's seat. It was a basic instinctual thing to check that she had forgotten to do. She watched him turn Catherine's head to the side, feeling beneath her neck. He didn't say anything to Sara, but called over his shoulder. "Where the hell are you damn medics?!"
If he was calling for medics, that must have meant she was alive.
"Sara..."
The voice, it was familiar to her, but it was lower, and it hadn't come from Catherine's cold lips. She turned, and his weary eyes written with lines from years of hard cases caught her attention, and her memory.
"Hello, Jim."
He seized her shoulders. "We've been looking all over for you!"
"Jim," Sara said. She looked over her shoulder. "Catherine."
Brass followed her gaze and his grip on her shoulders slackened. "What happened?" he asked, tonelessly.
"She ran a red light," Sara said. "She didn't realize it, we got side swiped, t-boned, smashed..." She turned back to him, her eyes welling with tears. "Why won't it stop? Why does it keep getting worse? Why did Nick and I fight, why did we even leave, I told him we should have stayed and—Oh god, is Nick OK?"
She found his arms slowly encompassing her and she greedily returned the embrace, glad to feel the warmth of someone else, hear their heartbeat, the blood rushing in their veins.
"Nick, he's..."
"Feverish," Sara finished for him. "Convulsions. Delirious. Am I warm?"
"Everything that happened to you," he said.
"But that just happened to me yesterday," she whispered. She frowned. "Two days ago. Why is it happening so fast for him?"
"I... don't know." And she could tell, he really didn't. Jim Brass liked to have an answer for everything, and when he didn't, he usually counted on Grissom to give him answers. But Grissom wasn't there, and now Sara was asking him these questions and he would do anything to give her the answers.
"Catherine..." Sara choked. "Did I do this?"
"You didn't do anything," Brass insisted, and his grip around her tightened.
"Where's Grissom?" Sara whimpered. "I need him..."
"He's trying to find you a cure," Brass told her. "And he will."
"Where's Warrick?" she asked. "And Greg?"
"Warrick is waiting to hear from you," Brass said. "He's looking after Nick. And Greg is with Grissom."
She pulled away, a little stunned. "What? Where did they go? Catherine mentioned..."
"Spain," Brass told her. "They'll be back in no time, you'll see."
"Why did he go?" Sara breathed.
"He wanted to find you a—"
"Not Grissom..." Sara said, bafflement etched in her eyes. "Greg. Why did they both have to go?"
He looked as if that was an easy question to answer, but he stopped. "I'm not too sure. I think he just... He wanted to help."
She pursed her lips to stop them from shaking. "I need him so badly right now."
"Greg?"
"Grissom."
"Sara, you're gonna have to start using names here," Brass said, laughing slightly. "I'm getting confused."
She closed her eyes and laughed. It hurt. She blinked rapidly and looked away. "I can feel it inside me, Jim. I..." He began to weave in and out of her vision and she frowned. "I feel dizzy..."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Brass said quickly as he grabbed her shoulders. He led her over to an ambulance and sat her down, calling over a nearby paramedic. "You!" he said. "She needs help."
She closed her eyes to focus. "I'm fine!" she protested, desperately trying to assure them that she was. "Catherine, Catherine, her head, it wasn't right!"
"They're tending to Catherine as we speak," Brass assured her as a medic came between them and she could no longer see the detective. But she noticed another paramedic looking grim as he approached Brass.
The medic shined a light into her pupil and she thought she went blind. "Stop it!" she said, struggling.
"Ma'am, you need to calm down—"
"Brass!" she screamed, grabbing the paramedic so she could look over his shoulder. His face fell as the other medic whispered something to him then waited for the detective to respond. When he did, the medic nodded and headed back to the car.
"Ma'am, please stay still!" the paramedic snapped as he pushed her away from him. He continued to examine her for basic injuries from the crash, but she was frantic to find Brass again.
Luckily he stepped into view and kneeled down next to her. "Sara," he began. "They're having some difficulty with Catherine..."
Her heart plummeted into her stomach and she swore the parasite began to feed on it. "What's happening? What's going on?"
"When the car hit you, it crushed the driver's side door and trapped her left arm. They don't know if they can move her without amputating."
She moved her hands up to her face as she inhaled, which annoyed the paramedic, who was taking her blood pressure. "You can't!" she protested. "You can't do that to her!"
She leaped to her feet, the sphygmometer still attached to her arm and darted off to the car.
"SARA!" Brass yelled, but she didn't care. The tears were rolling down her face when she felt strong arms around her stomach, pulling her back. She struggled a moment, trying desperately to get back to the car, until she gave up and turned around, sobbing in Jim Brass's arms.
The town was a half a day's walk, Leon told them, and this made Grissom frown. Every now and then, Greg was startled by a gunshot. Generally, it was because Leon had seen a Ganado creeping up on them. Ever since Greg's incident they had all become more careful, especially Leon, who had substituted a sniper rifle for his shotgun.
They walked in silence, mostly to better hear Ganados creeping up on them, but Greg had a different reason for keeping to himself. He watched the back of Grissom's head as he grappled with the question he wanted to ask, but probably never would. And anyways, now was the worst time to ask. Sara was dying, Nick was dying, and Grissom was already mad at him for coming to Spain against his orders.
But then, he heard something strange, Spanish, echoing in the woods. This was followed by a gunshot from Leon's sniper rifle, and then a prompt choice swear word. He lowered his gun and looked at the other three in his party.
"Scouts," he said. "They'll be off to alert the village that we're coming."
"What does that mean?" Grissom asked.
"It means that their population isn't as thinned out as we thought," Luis put in, glaring at Leon. "I thought you said Saddler is dead."
"He is dead—"
"Then how are they repopulating this place without a queen?" Luis demanded.
"Don't be stupid, they aren't repopulating," Leon snapped.
"I thought you decimated that village the last time we were here," said Luis.
"How would you know, you were tied up in a wardrobe the whole time!" Leon retorted.
"Why are you two always fighting?" Grissom asked wearily.
"You used to trust me, Luis, what happened to that?" Leon asked.
"You stopped trusting me," Luis replied.
"Shut up!" Greg yelled, making all of them turn to him. "We can't distrust each other now, remember what happened last time? You guys used to be friends. Maybe draw on those memories a little."
He turned around and started walking, expecting them to follow. Something moved a few feet in front of him and he drew his gun. He saw its red eyes and fired two shots at it. It fell out from behind a tree, dead, two bullet holes in its skull.
There was silence and he turned around to see his three traveling companions watching him curiously. "Come on," Greg said seriously as he reloaded his gun. "Let's go."
He started off in the direction of the town, unaware of Grissom's eyes boring holes into his back.
Sara cradled her bandaged wrist and watched him wrestle with his demons. He seemed completely unaware of her presence. She swallowed and kneeled down by his bed, pushing his hair back from his eyes as he wrestled with a delusional nightmare. Warrick said that all the morphine would do is launch him into a drug-induced sleep, but he still looked like he was in pain, and Sara knew from experience that he was.
"Hang in there, Nick," she whispered. "There'll come a dry spell. You won't feel anything for a while."
She heard someone come in and looked over her shoulder at Warrick, who looked like a walking corpse. Neither one of them smiled at each other, but finally, he said, "Thank God for you, Sara."
She rose to her feet, afraid to approach him, wondering vaguely in the back of her mind if she was still contagious, if she would randomly cough up blood, if she would hurt another friend. "How is Catherine?"
Warrick chewed on his lip and shook his head. "She'll be alright. Doped up on pain meds right now." He looked over at Nick. "At least they work for her."
Sara watched Warrick for a few moments and saw all the thoughts flickering across his eyes like a news ticker. It was awkward, to stand in between the silent bond of two old, best friends. She quickly excused herself. "I'll go see if she needs anything..." She ducked out of the room, almost unnoticed by Warrick, who stepped towards his friend.
The minute he did, Nick's eyes shot open. "Hello?!" the Texan called, his voice cracked and dry like the Sahara.
Warrick immediately rushed to his friend. "Nick, I—"
"Hello?" Nick cried again, his voice sounding smaller. "God, there's nothing there at all, is there?"
"Nick...?" Warrick said, reaching for his friend's hand.
Nick lashed out angrily and turned his head away. "No..." he mumbled. "No, there's nothing. Why is it so dark here? Oh God, why does it hurt so much?"
Warrick was startled, and he backed away. "Nick?" he repeated for a third time. "Nick, can you hear me? I'm here, bro." And yet despite his words, he continued to move away from his tortured friend.
"Stop it..." Nick murmured. "Stop it, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make her cry, Dad, but she stole Indy! I'm sorry I pulled her hair, just make it stop, please, just..." He trailed off into nonsensical words.
Warrick continued to back further and further away from the bed until he ran into the windowsill behind him. His hands gripped the edge of the sill hard until his knuckles were white, biting his lip until it bled. The metallic taste was bitter in his dry mouth. He looked on with the most torturous emotion to him. He did everything. He solved murders. He had saved Nick on at least two separate occasions; he solved masses of mysteries; he helped the helpless. The helpless...
He was tired of watching his friends suffer around him. Nick, Sara, Catherine... he wanted to do something. He had tried to accept the thought of losing them, and he found that he couldn't. Oh God, what if he lost Nick right now?
He let out a small yelp like a lost dog trying to find its way home again and then realizing it has lost its sense of smell. He was lost in the darkness without anything to lead him back. Everywhere he turned was a dead end. When he didn't hear silence he heard misleading echoes. His hands were tied and there was no scent on the wind that would give him any clue.
This thing had gone to extreme measures to draw out Nick's torture. As long as Warrick could have done something to ease the pain, to make him better, then there had been hope, there had been a chance. But now, he was feeling that most obscene emotion, the emotion he only could understand coming from other people.
Indeed. Warrick was, like many of the victims he saved, absolutely helpless. And then with a curt gasp, the tears began to leak from his reluctant and weary eyes.
"We'll fix it..." he murmured to himself as he watched Nick. "We'll fix it, I promise." He repeated the mantra as he deliberately approached the bed again, conquering his fear. He reached for the morphine drip and pressed the button. "I'll make it stop, Nick," he whispered. "I'll make it stop."
