Enjoy…..
:) Emrys
Daddy's Little Girl – Chapter 11"…all right now. She's gone, and no one is going to hurt you again."
Nick heard the voice that he vaguely identified as being clogged with tears but was unable to interpret the reason for the emotion behind the sound. Neither was he able to make sense of its garbled message. All he could understand was that a voice was speaking to him, and it sounded sad and perhaps a little bit desperate.
"C'mon Sara, we should go. We have a lot of work to do, and it could still be a while before he comes around." It was another voice, different from the first, but sounding just as sad.
"I know, Greg. It's just that…. Well, they said that…." The first voice thickened even further and faltered. "He just needs to wake up soon," it finally said. He heard the deeper intensity of some indecipherable emotion echoing there now.
"I know Sara, but we should…." Any chance of deducing even a vague amount of information from the second voice fled when he felt the light and sudden touch of something on his arm. He gasped in the throes of a frenzied yet failed attempt to break away from the contact, and something in the center of him hammered too hard. Panic overwhelmed him, and he was powerless to escape from it.
"You both need to leave, now," the authority that resonated in this new, third voice bled away as his inadequate awareness clouded over once more.
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When consciousness blessed him the second time, he was able to reach up and move the confining thing from his face. After it was gone; however, he felt an unhealthy heaviness in his chest that frightened him. He tried to return the hateful thing back to its spot over his nose and mouth but found that he was too weak to do so.
"Leave that on there now, son," the voice was deep and it twanged with familiarity. Nick slowly opened his eyes as he felt what he now recognized to be an oxygen mask being readjusted by helpful hands.
Panic skittered along the edges of his consciousness, but he managed to restrain it. It took a while, but his eyes focused on the strong face of the man who hovered beside him.
"Cisco," he whispered. His subdued voice was muffled even further by the oxygen mask, but apparently his father had heard him.
"Yeah," his father struggled with the simple word, and Nick felt the panic advance closer.
"Mom?" he mouthed as his eyes drifted closed of their own volition.
"Right here," he heard her soothing tones, but surprisingly her voice did nothing other than remind him of another time and place when all of this pain had started.
"If you need me, baby, just have her call me. Just a little phone call and before you know it, I'll be right here," she had assured on that night so long ago when something indefinably awful had happened to him. Had assured him in the same soothing tones she used now.
Nick's eyes shot open at the vague memory of a son's implicit love for his mother betrayed. He searched her face closely for only a moment, before allowing himself to succumb to the now comforting enfold of unconsciousness.
As he threw off awareness, he did not see his mother's shattered reaction to the resentment she inexplicably saw in her son's single, intent stare.
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Warrick's tall frame was folded awkwardly in the hard chair that someone had managed to scrounge up and leave near Nick's bedside. His body language bespoke of defeat as he slouched and stared at his friend who looked uncharacteristically frail and helpless lying unconscious in the hospital bed.
Nick's arm had been twitching relentlessly since the tall CSI had first entered the room, and the continued presence of the spasm was feeding the seething fires of Warrick's anger. The palsied movement was a result of the cyanide poisoning, a side effect that could be indicative of nerve damage. Nerve damage. Another blow to add to the list of imbalanced occurrences that was the life of Nick Stokes.
Warrick wiped away the sweat that had unaccountably formed on his face and stared down at the folder he held tightly in one fist. He loosened his grip when he realized that the photographs inside were being crumpled and diverted his gaze from their presence. The pictures had not been bagged for evidence. He had been unwilling to become a participant in Kelly Gordon's sick game by bringing the photos back to the lab for all of Nick's co-workers to see. Kelly Gordon was dead, so what good would come from adding to Nick's violation?
A wave of nausea twisted Warrick's stomach when he considered the sum total of the violations Nick had been forced to experience. He mentally turned away from such thoughts and instead willed Nick to wake up. The man had been in and out of consciousness for three days, but Warrick had not been present for any of these short periods when Nick had been peripherally aware of his surroundings. He needed to see Nick's eyes open and aware, if only for a few seconds. He just required enough time to make sure that there was no remnant of horror in Nick's conscious expression. Just needed to make sure that the scared and lost look that telegraphed from the face of every photograph he had found in that upstairs bedroom dresser had disappeared.
But Nick's eyes remained stubbornly closed, and Warrick's impotent anger simmered dangerously when he finally left the hospital room.
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"Brass wanted me to tell you that he'll be by later to visit. He's still trying to buffer everyone from the press."
Grissom's voice continued the tale of Jim Brass' heroics, but Nick could barely concentrate on the words.
He was not doing well.
He was becoming more accustomed to being awake on the odd occasion but still relished the numbness that he could only find in unconsciousness. He was unaware of time passing and could not concentrate for any length of time. His lack of concentration was most evident when, despite being told several times over that Kelly Gordon was dead, he could not maintain the belief that he was safe. Every touch sent panic through him, and the medical personnel had resorted to monitoring and moving him only when he was deeply unconscious. Thankfully, he was unconscious more often than not.
"Nick, I know it's hard, but you need to start talking to someone," Grissom's voice had changed tones while Nick had been off in his reverie. It was now patient and reasonable and directed totally towards Nick.
He refused to acknowledge Grissom's words or presence. Still too weak to walk away from the other man's voice, he instead stared wistfully at the door. He was tired, and weak. His body felt strange and broken, and he didn't want to belong to it anymore.
He was scared all of the time.
He remained half-convinced that he was dead and all of this awareness was a strange, cosmic practical joke.
He couldn't find it in himself to laugh at the prank.
"Nick! Damn it, Nick!" Grissom's voice had quickly lost all semblance of patience, and Nick had the sudden insight that Gil was stretched far past his breaking point. The stirring of concern reached him but was suddenly quenched by a swell of panic. Nick heard the heart monitor increase its tempo and closed his eyes against the dizziness that assailed him.
"Nick, please, look at me," Grissom begged. "Nicky, we can help you through this if you just let us. Let us help you manage the panic, like we did before." Nick heard the concern in Grissom's voice and knew what would inevitably come next.
Don't touch me! He wanted to scream it, but all that came out of his mouth was a raspy cough.
Grissom reached for him, and he felt his heart stutter in fear. At the interrupted sound of the heart monitor, Grissom seemed to understand what he had been about to do and hastily pulled his hand away.
"Nick, calm down," the patient tone was back. "Nicky, you need to calm down. You're all right. No one is going to hurt you. She's dead. Do you remember? She won't ever hurt you again."
I'm the one who's dead; Nick remembered and was oddly comforted by that thought. He became aware of a sudden tightness in his chest and was almost relieved when the edges of his world began to gray.
The last thing he heard was Grissom calling for the nurse.
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Grissom was still there when his eyelids weakly opened. Nick felt as if he was floating on the periphery of reality and hoped that meant his whole nightmare would be over soon.
"You're okay, Nick. They just gave you something to relax you," Grissom looked worried, and Nick couldn't help but notice the surreptitious glances Gil kept giving the heart monitor.
He managed a weak nod to indicate his understanding and watched Gil from what seemed like a long distance away. Sadness unexpectedly welled up through him as he considered how detached and lonely he felt. Tears flowed freely down his face, and he was too weak to quell them or to even lift a hand to wipe them away.
"Nick, please. Tell me what I can do. I just want to help," Grissom voice was quiet, but it maintained a pleading edge that made Nick's tears fall faster.
"Cath…Catherine," Nick struggled to rasp out the name. He felt powerless and wrung out. "Let me…talk…Catherine," by the end of the request, his voice had vanished. Not wanting to make any further requests for fear that they would firmly establish his living presence, Nick turned his head away from Grissom's direction and closed his eyes.
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She had sat by Nick's bedside for hours on end when he had first been brought in to the hospital. But he had never been conscious during her visit. Feeling a loss at having to leave him while he still slumbered on, she nevertheless had regretted departing despite the awful sounds and antiseptic smells that punctuated the otherwise quiet of the room. But her duties to her daughter had drawn her away, and she knew that Nick would understand despite his infirmity.
But when Grissom had asked her to sit with Nick until he regained consciousness again, had even offered to look after Lindsey himself, Catherine had become resolute in the undertaking of staying nearby Nick until he woke up. Grissom's request had been asked with tight words colored by an alarming anxiousness. His emotional appeal could not be denied, and knowing that Nick had specifically asked for her gave her more reason to sit in the uncomfortable chair and wait.
While she waited, Catherine studied Nick's sleeping face and, when he flinched, wondered whether he would wake up soon. She wanted to speak with him again, but she was frightened about what she would say to him. She was terrified of what he would say to her. She knew why Nick had asked for her, knew what this was all about. Nick had once trusted her above all others with a secret, and because of that he needed her to acknowledge the related pain he now was in.
She thought about the grief that had been in his eyes on the day he had first told his secret to another human being. Thought about the sadness and the residual fear that had emanated from him as he told the story of a small boy who had been mishandled and yet had been strong enough to survive his maltreatment. A small boy who had, in fact, grown up to become one of the strongest men she had ever known. But the day he had demonstrated that strength to her by telling her his story had been years ago, before another lifetime's worth of pain had been added on. She wondered how strong he was. She feared that he might have reached the end of his resources.
She caught sight of him struggling to open his eyes and eagerly leaned forward to show herself to him. But when she saw his conscious face, she drew back and gasped in surprise at what she witnessed there. He didn't even look the same; he wasn't Nick anymore. He was a broken stranger who trembled with fear and self-loathing, and her heart cried out for him.
He mouthed words that she could barely hear through the concealing veil of his oxygen mask.
"Catherine…."
Stubbornly determined to be supportive of him, she quickly recovered from her initial shock.
"Yeah, Nick. I'm here," she replied with a shaky smile.
"Catherine…do you know what she did?"
She nodded while maintaining her fiercely protective gaze on him.
"Do you know…know what it means?"
Again she nodded, but this time she was forced to break her gaze in order to wipe away the tears that lingered within the boundaries of her eyes.
"Catherine, I can't…I can't do this anymore," he said and closed his eyes against the force of her sadness.
She grabbed his hand without thinking of the consequences her touch may have. She gripped it tightly and felt the slight shudder of a tremble beneath her grasp.
She held on.
And he let her.
