Howdy! Thanks so much to si-te-hace-feliz, Marymel, Shannon, W.S.C Magica de Spell, guest(whoever you are :)) for your epic reviews! I'm so happy you like this story! Here we go, chapter twenty four, my longest story I have ever written, I think!
However, I know that more of you are reading this, (I see the hits and visitors) thanks so much for taking the time to read it. I would LOVE it if people would tell me what they think, even if its just a few words!
So, Read, Enjoy, Review!
Chapter Twenty Four
"Wait, Grissom? Don't hang up! Please, Grissom, don't, don't hang up..."
"That's right, you know? I should be just like you. Alone in my hermetically sealed condo, watching discovery on the big screen, working genius level crossword puzzles. But no relationships. No chance any of it will slop over into a case. That's right I wanna be just like you..."
Catherine's voice merged to Sara's...
"You wanna sleep with me...that way when I wake up in a cold sweat under the blanket hearing Kay's screams, you can tell me it's nothing. Just empathy."
Nick's...
"I never meant to disappoint you..."
Warrick's...
"I know, I messed up...I won't let you down again..."
Nick's again...
"If I'm not ready, be a man! Tell me I'm not ready...I want you to think I am a good CSI..."
Greg's...
"You make me nervous..."
""Grissom...Where...where did you get that picture?"
Nick's again...
"Sir, I'm sorry. I'm so, so, sorry, I didn't mean to leave Sara, I thought I'd be the only one who could get hurt, I...I tried to save Greg, they told me...it's all my fault..."
Back to Sara's
"GRISSOM!"
Then his own...
"We will talk about this when you get back to the lab. No stops Stokes. No stops."
Nick, crying, writhing in a bed of knives...
Sara, screaming, a large man on top of her, thrusting his hips...
Greg, whimpering, begging down the phone...
Warrick, grunting, fists flying into his body, his stomach, his face...
Catherine, convulsing, electricity shooting through her body...
His team, his family, tortured, reduced to begging for help.
Nick glared at Grissom. "Why aren't you helping us?"
"Yeah," Greg added, "What sort of a boss are you? You're just gonna let us die?"
"Grissom? They raped me. Don't you care? Why didn't you make them stop?" Sara asked.
"You just lay there on the ground while they shoved me into the trunk. How gentlemanly of you, Gil." Catherine scoffed.
"Aren't you doing anything? Why haven't you found us yet?" Warrick spat and Grissom recoiled.
Their hate filled faces pierced his heart. "I'm sorry!" he cried. They just shook their heads simultaneously, and faded away. "No! Wait! I'm trying..."
The tattooed man Grissom had come to think of as the devil approached him. "Hello Dr. Grissom."
"Give me my CSIs back!"
"You will never get them back."
In a blur of colour, Acolmiztli was replaced by Nick, huddled, sobbing in a heap on the floor, a large round bullet wound in the middle of his forehead. "Grissom, please!"
Greg appeared next, his throat cut from ear to ear, the wound almost decapitating, "Help me. Help us."
"Don't let them hurt us anymore." Sara pleaded, hanging by her neck from the ceiling next to Greg's face, a river of blood pouring down her legs.
"Just hurry." Warrick urged, a huge chunk missing from the side of his head, his hair sticky with blood.
"It's already too late." Catherine sighed, her head laying a few feet away from her body.
A blinding white light transported Grissom to the morgue. Five tables bore five bodies of five loved ones. Al looked at him with a look of pure loathing.
"You were too late. If you had just done your job, I wouldn't have to do this. They would still be alive. They are dead, Gil. Dead, dead, dead..."
Robbins turned into Brass, "Because your head was so far down the microscope, you didn't even bother trying to find them. Don't bother coming to the funerals. We all know you don't care."
"No!" Grissom cried. "No!" suddenly he was in a long corridor. At the end, he could see his guys, happy, laughing...
He ran as fast as he could, sprinting down the corridor, but when he got there, the big glass door remained closed. Catherine floated up to it.
"We're in heaven. You can't come in. You're not dead. And anyway you let us die. You don't deserve heaven. So, we won't be seeing you around anymore."
"Goodbye, Grissom!" They all sang, their voices sounding like a choir of children.
"NO!" he yelled, "NO!"
"No!"
"Um, Dr. Grissom?" a light hand tapped his shoulder.
Grissom's head flew off his desk, and his eyes opened. He blinked. He was in his office. So, it was...nightmare. Grissom pinched the bridge of his nose for a second, before looking up to see an attractive middle aged woman and a tall, grey haired man staring at him with concern. He could tell that when they were younger, they would have both had looks to be the envy of a lot of people. He also knew who they were.
"Judge Stokes...Mrs. Stokes...I'm sorry, I just, erm..."
"Fell asleep?" The Judge's tone was not unkind. "Dr. Grissom, I know that you're doing everything you can for my boy and the others. We're here because we want to help in any way we can."
"You don't look like you've slept in a week." Mrs. Stokes said softly.
Grissom half laughed. "Greg Sanders, my youngest and newest CSI, was kidnapped a week ago. I haven't slept since, no."
"It's always the youngest that gets in the most trouble." Mrs. Stokes nodded. "Nicky has scared us many more times than the others. Has done, ever since he was a kid."
"This is the second time in less than a year that you've called us to say Pancho has been abducted. Now, if he didn't speak so highly of you, I would do everything in my power to cripple you. But from what I've heard from him, you seem to care a lot about your team. That much was evident, when he was...buried...If you need anything, anything at all, do not hesitate to ask." Judge Stokes said somewhat shakily.
Grissom smiled sadly at the man. "Thank you." he paused. "Actually, there is something...could you follow me please?"
Grissom led Nick's parents through to the evidence vault, and pulled out a box. "Nick recovered this envelope from Greg's apartment."
"Greg? That's the nice, funny, Norwegian man, good friends with Nick? We met him in the hospital. Is he alright? He and Nick were almost acting like brothers, joking about someone called Papa Olaf or something..." Mrs. Stokes asked softly.
Grissom smiled softly at the last part...the number of times he had seen Nick and Greg act like brothers, or the number of times Greg had spoken about his grandfather. However, her question wiped the tiny smile off his face. "He...he's my youngest CSI. The first one taken."
Mrs. Stokes closed her eyes. "I'm sorry."
"Not your fault." Grissom pulled the photos out of the envelope and removed the one of the six year old Nick. He looked at the photograph for a second. Nick's face was slightly chubbier, but his sparkling eyes hadn't changed a bit. Neither had his dark hair. The lack of his two front teeth showed a childlike innocence that Nick hadn't completely lost despite his years on the job. With a bittersweet smile he passed it gently to Nick's parents.
"Do you have any idea how they could have gotten this photograph?"
Mrs. Stokes frowned. "My god... Robert, my eldest son took this." She smiled slightly. "He was 21, almost finished college. Said he was the only kid to go home for spring break. His older sister, Joanne had come back, too. She was 26. Nicky was six, a year younger than Joanne's oldest, Jacob. They made a human pyramid, Nick was the top of it, and so proud...It was a family tradition you see, to make the pyramid, and it was said that you had to be tough to be at the top. He always tried to prove himself to everyone...I think we may have babied him a little, he was almost seven years younger than Mary-Jane and Lily, they were twins, the two second youngest, and twenty years younger than Joanne, who gave birth to Jacob a month after I found myself pregnant with Nick. I suppose babying him was inevitable when he was younger than his oldest nephew...
Anyway, when they took the photo, Nick was the only child in a way...Mary-Jane was 13 and counted herself a teenager, fully set on being a gymnast. But that was the last family reunion before the, uh, the car accident. Ethan had just got his driver's licence, and Katie was teaching him how to drive. They were driving Lily, May-Jane and Nick to school when an alcoholic came flying out the other way. By some miracle they all survived, but Mary-Jane was left in a wheelchair, Nicky got a broken arm...There were no more pyramids after that...
Rob told me about five months ago he found this whilst sorting out his attic. Apparently he found a few rolls of film he forgot to get developed, typical of him. This was one of a set of photos he took that day. He sent Nick a copy of this one photo...He sent it to all his siblings. It was everyone's favourite...I carry a copy in my purse..." her voice broke
"I have no idea how the hell they got their hands on it." Judge Stokes said an angry undertone to his voice as he put his arm around his wife.
Mrs. Stokes' eyes filled with tears as she passed the photo back. "I take it that's evidence."
Grissom nodded. "I swear to you, I am doing everything I can."
"We believe you. We know you want Nick back as much as we do." Mrs. Stokes shook Grissom's hand. "Excuse me. Is there a ladies room...?"
"Right down the hall on your left." Grissom replied automatically. He was struck by the difference in the attitudes of Nick's parents. They were a lot more sympathetic, he guessed probably because he looked a wreck.
"Thank you."
As he watched his wife leave, the Judge turned back to Grissom. "I want to know...do you know if Pancho is injured?" Grissom's eyes fluttered downwards, but Nick's father continued. "I have seven children. I have learnt to tell when one of them is hurt, and I know that Nick...He's the baby of our family. The one everyone feels the need to protect. In your family..."
"He plays the older brother." Grissom explained softly. "He looks out for everyone. Protects everyone."
Judge Stokes smiled sadly. "I figured from the way he talks about y'all. But I need to know what you know..."
Grissom closed his eyes. "Just over a week ago, a woman we know only as Yelira used a branding iron on his back. There was no sign of infection, and that seemed to be healing fine..."
Other than wincing, the Judge remained composed. "There's something else?"
"I received a video link, with instructions to be watched by myself, Catherine Willows and Warrick Brown, who at the time were yet to have been abducted." Grissom's voice continued to waver as he carried on. "We saw two men inserting small knives into Nick's right leg, back and left arm. They seemed to be more intent on causing pain than causing major internally damage. They tied a small chain through the knives and forced Greg to pull them out."
Judge Bill Stokes wiped a tear from his eye as he stared at the photo of the little boy.
"I will find every single person my son sent that list to and I will not rest until we find my son." He swore.
Grissom met the man's eyes, and a mutual understanding passed between them. "Neither will I."
CSIVCSIVCSIV
"Finally!" Itzli rolled his eyes as Nick blinked groggily. Suddenly, the Texan's eyes widened at the sight of the blood around Greg's neck.
"Greg!" he cried in a creaking frozen voice.
"Get up, slowly, both of you."
The two men slowly eased their way up the wall, painfully moving their frozen limbs. Nick's eyes never left the deepening gash in Greg's throat.
"Thank you. I'm sure this little boy will tell you how grateful he is later. Right now, move. Out of the door. Now, you can try to run if you like. But killing is the biggest turn on you can imagine. And this-" Itzli violently twisted the knife, causing Greg to whimper in pain as the blade attacked more of his flesh. Itzli smiled as he listened to the sound. "-that is the sweetest sound that you will ever here."
"Don't..." Nick croaked.
"Walk."
Warrick began walking forwards, and Nick followed weakly, limping heavily due to the knife wounds in his right leg. Itzli motioned for them to walk towards the room where Sara and Catherine were being held.
"Open the door."
Warrick lifted up the heavy latch and pulled open the door. Itzli kicked Nick in, and without the use of his right leg the man fell straight to the floor with a groan. Warrick stumbled in next, and finally Itzli and Greg came through the door.
Sara and Catherine were huddled together on a bed, and both women stared in alarm at the large wound in Greg's neck.
Itzli shifted his grip on the back of Greg's neck once more, and muttered through gritted teeth into his ear. "One more flick of my wrist, kid, and you bleed out in seconds."
"Leave him alone!" Sara whispered, fear stopping her from shouting. "Stop hurting him!"
"Oh, I will." Itzli grinned.
He flicked his wrist.
Blood flew in all directions as Greg fell to the floor.
"NO!" Warrick and Catherine yelled.
"GREG!" Nick and Sara screamed.
Itzli left the room with a grin as Nick dragged himself to Greg.
"No, no, no!" he murmured, his freezing hands turning over his friend's body. "Greg?"
A voice that sounded vaguely like Victoria's began singing sweetly, the music filling the room.
"Tell me it's not true,
Say it's just a story,
Something on the news,
Tell me it's not true,
No it's here before me
Say it's just a dream,
Say it's just a scene
From an old movie of years ago
From an old movie of Marilyn Monroe's.
Say it's just some clowns
Two players in the limelight
And bring the curtain down
Say it's just some clowns
Who couldn't get their lines right
Say it's just a show
On the radio
That we can turn over and start again
That we can turn over,
It's only a game..."
"Greg! Greg! No, Greg, wake up!" Nick cried desperately. Suddenly, Greg opened his eyes.
"Nick..." the younger man spluttered, "Nick..."
Sara tumbled off the bed, and grasped Greg's hand, placing her other hand onto his bloody neck to try and stem the bleeding. Then she smiled at him.
"Thank god - he missed your artery!" she cried happily. Greg's eyes fluttered closed in relief, but when Nick and Sara gasped they flew open again.
"I'm...good..." he hesitantly raised his hand to his neck. "Looks...worse...Sara, Cath...I'm...sorry."
Nick and Warrick exchanged glances, but the two women knew exactly what he meant. Sara leaned close to his ear.
"It's not your fault," she whispered. "He just wanted an excuse. You protected us as much as you could, and that means the world to me, Greg."
He smiled sadly, tears in his eyes. "But...I..."
"Greg," Catherine smiled, coming to sit by his head. "If it makes you feel any better...I forgive you."
Greg's smiled broadened at Catherine's encouragement and he eased himself to a sitting position.
"Here. Sara, do you mind...?" Catherine held up her discarded, torn tank top.
Sara shook her head and shuddered gracefully. "Go for it."
Catherine gently but firmly wrapped the blue fabric round Greg's neck. Blood seeped through, but it was little enough to put all the CSIs at ease.
"I thought you were dead." Sara admitted, glancing at the three men she considered brothers. "They told us you weren't breathing."
Then the young man timidly reached out to Sara, who leaned almost eagerly into the younger man's embrace. The two friends buried their faces in each other's hair as Warrick looked at Nick and said grimly,
"We weren't."
CSIVCSIVCSIV
"You're right." Itzli breathed in her ear. "His whimpers are such a turn on."
Victoria kissed the man's cheek. "I wanna keep him. Let's not kill him just yet. We don't have to use the licence just yet."
"No. Besides, Jack would kill us himself if he didn't get a go."
Victoria looked at the childlike innocence beaming from their youngest captive.
"I know. He can't wait. He likes men, women, boys, girls either way, but most of all..."
"He loves the innocent."
PS~how did you like the bit about Nick's past? Was it too much? Okay? Interesting? dull? I'm still experimenting here, so it's great if you can give me some results (lol!) Thanks!