Chapter 43 – Lullaby
We're back to Nick's POV unless otherwise posted
Every night this week, without fail, I have woken up in that box. It varies who's in there with me. Some nights, it's Anna. Other nights it is me alone and I'm not found in time. The ants bite me continuously until I'm dead. Last night's version was me with my parents trapped but it's always the oppressive six sides pressing in on us and the blindingly bright light shutting off the noise of the fan by my head with the ants. I shivered as I remembered the crawling and biting. Every time I thought about those ants, I broke out in chill bumps. I was able to hide it due to the healing scabs and scars on my arms, but nothing I did helped me with the nightmares.
Anna was good about throwing everyone out of the room when I broke down over the littlest detail. At first, I thought she was being rude, but after she did it with a room full of people in my ICU room, I realized why she was doing it. With an entire room full of LVPD officers and most of my team from work, she didn't want them to perceive me as weak or breakable. Some of the times, my mother would stay in while I broke down, but other times, she'd leave so I wouldn't see her cry. It had to be God awful for a mother to see her own son in a situation like mine. My father remained stoic, never once crying in my presence, but my mother kept stock in Kleenex, filling her purse with as many of the tissues as she could cram in there.
Catherine, Sara and Greg had taken turns with me at night while my parents and Anna went back to the hotel room for rest. Dr. Lindley finally relented and let Anna stay in my room with me as long as she stayed on that couch contraption in the corner of the room but she did have to go back to the hotel for a proper night's sleep. My parents were aware of the riders of Anna's visits and went out of their way to not only cater to me, but also to her and she didn't want for anything while my parents and sisters were here. Tyler came for a couple days, but not having many vacation days left due to Marissa being off on baby leave, he couldn't stay long.
Allison and Jillian were spending time both at the house as well as my hospital room. My mother said that the two of them were cleaning up the house in preparation for my release from the hospital, which according to the physician who had taken over my care, was still several days or so away.
The next few days were a blur of too many faces and voices to keep track of. Just about every doctor and nurse in the hospital, including a psych resident as well as my daily visitors had come by to check on me and a call from Anna's parents was thrown in just for fun. If anything, that was enough to mess with my head. Out of the time I had known Anna, I've spoken to her mother exactly two times, this time being the second one. She was pleasant enough, but in a hurry to get off the phone and if I had to guess, she didn't want to make the phone call to begin with, but rather she was doing it because I was her son in law and someone else made her do it.
Later on that day, to my surprise, I was allowed to leave the ICU and move up a couple floors to a room on the post surgical ward. With it came the opportunity for me to finally get out of bed and move around a little bit, but I had to wait on a physical therapist to arrive. When she finally did show up, I was able to move around in the hospital room, but first I had to master sitting up in the hospital bed. It felt really strange to have my legs hanging over the side of the bed and being upright after almost two weeks of lying down constantly. It was driving me up the wall and I could only imagine what it was like for Anna who was obeying Dr. Lindley's orders of bed rest. She kept her eyes on me as the therapist, who was about a small as she was, helped me out of bed and held me up while I got used to standing. I took a few steps towards the window before I felt uneasy and was told to sit. After about half an hour, I had finally gotten my legs underneath me and was moving around fairly well around my hospital room, despite protests from my stiff and swollen muscles.
It was another day later before I was allowed to go outside and I wanted Anna to come with me. When the nurse came in with a wheelchair to take me outside, an orderly was behind her, also with another wheelchair for Anna. She started to protest but sighed and sat down and was pushed outside with me.
The nurse and orderly left us alone outside in a rock garden just outside the cafeteria after leaving us with a portable hospital phone, telling us to call when we were done. It was quiet and secluded and perfect for me to finally get Anna alone and have her fill me in on everything.
The sun was shinning. The sky was bright and clear and empty except for a few clouds lazily floating by and they certainly weren't bothering anybody. It was a welcome sight for me since all I had seen since I had woken up were blank walls and medical equipment.
The hospital was close to the airport and as always, there were a few planes coming and going. I heard some faint music playing from another one of the buildings a street or so over. Whenever the wind would pick up, it'd carry the boring tunes with it, just long enough for me to hear a few notes.
It was great weather for being outside. Not too hot, but not too cold. It was Vegas in May. The shade of a few trees in the garden provided a solstice of sorts from the sun. Anna sunburned easily and with me being inside for so long, I was squinting against the light but it was good weather to be outside.
"Enough with the damn light."
When the sun came out from behind a stray cloud, it sent a ray of light aimed directly at me and with it came the memories. They kept flooding back.
I did not want to die. Not yet and not like this.
More memories. It was bad weather for dying but is there ever really a good time for that? Who would want that? Grissom maybe? I could hear his thoughts, 'Could I squeeze it in after my bug conference? Why not?'
If I died. That thought kept rolling through my head. I wouldn't have to worry about that meeting with Ecklie over my performance review in a month or so if I died in that box. My anniversary date with the lab was coming up in a couple months and like clockwork, Ecklie always had to have his performance reviews. For the most part, mine were always good. I was always complimented on my demeanor and how I handled critical cases and dealt with victims. This time though…Ecklie was about to have my ass on a silver platter. I knew he'd bring up the kidnapping and how I allowed this to happen to myself.
I was snapped back into reality when Anna got out of the wheelchair and moved to a wrought iron bench a few feet away from where we were. I drug my IV pole over and parked it next to a tree before I sat down beside her. "Feels good to be outside for a change."
Anna took my hand in hers, "I bet."
I wanted to badly to tell her about my experience, but didn't want to mention Kristy, and what happened while I was unconscious. I didn't want her to think I was a lunatic, so I opted not to tell her right away, but asked her instead if she had ever heard of anyone unconscious having out of body experiences, "Of course I have. Our consciousness can transcend our bodies even if science won't admit it."
"So you believe in it?"
"I believe that science still has a lot to catch up with in some areas and this is one. I've read stories about patients being unconscious during surgery but being able to remember everything. I've had unconscious patients in the back of our trucks remember what we were talking about when they woke up. Bryan's grandmother had an experience while she was in surgery for a hip replacement."
Now I was intrigued, "What was it?"
"Gamma went in for a hip replacement after a fall and her heart stopped. The surgeon was able to restart it, but she told us later that while she was dead, she was floating near the ceiling next to a sign that read 'You're dead.'"
"Did you have one when you were shot?"
Anna shook her head, "Not that I remember, no. I do remember at your apartment someone kept telling me 'Hurry up and come on. We're waiting for you.' or at least I think that's what it was. I don't remember what it was that was being said exactly, but it was something to that nature and I felt someone pulling on me. They were trying to pull me away from you. I felt you holding on to me and I felt the pain from it all, but something was puling me and pulling on me hard. It scared the mess out of me and it didn't help that I was losing consciousness."
I never saw a physical sign when I was where I was, but it did mean I wasn't as crazy as I felt. I decided to change the subject just to be on the safe side, "Mom told me what happened to you."
Anna shifted uncomfortably in her seat, "Yeah, but everything is okay now."
I stuck one of my fingers through the hospital ID arm band she was still wearing, "You have to be more careful about Thing. You have to take care of yourself and the baby."
"Nick, I know this, okay? I've gotten lectures from everyone already about what I did, but do you blame me? How do you expect me to stay calm in the situation? Imagine it from my perspective if you will. Yes, I could have done some things differently, but asking me to stay calm while you were missing?" She shook her head, "Not gonna happen."
"I'm not trying to accu…"
Anna interrupted me, "Sounds like you are."
"Anna, I'm just worried about you. That's all."
"And you think I wasn't worried about you?"
I sighed, "How could you let this happen?"
"Nick!" Anna was livid, "Let what happen?"
"Do you not want this baby?"
Anna stood up so fast that I thought she was about to knock the bench over and I was still in it, "Nicholas Parker Stokes what kind of question is that?"
I pulled on Anna's hand to sit down, but she refused, "Anna, please. Sit." She still didn't budge, "I just meant you were worried about turning out like your mother…"
"Nick, I'm sorry. Okay? I'm sorry. I should have come to the hospital. I should have remained calm, but damn it I didn't mean to put this baby in danger. I wanted this pregnancy." With me still pulling on her arm, she finally sat down, "You were buried. I thought…" Anna had to stop herself, "I thought…" With that, she started crying, "I thought I was about to watch you die."
This wasn't going in the direction I wanted. I didn't want it to sound like I was mad at Anna because I wasn't, but I was and still am concerned about her and Thing, "I'm not mad at you. I promise. I knew something was wrong with you long before I woke up."
"How?"
And now I had to tell Anna about Kristy, "Earlier when I mentioned the out of body experiences, I think I had one."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Anna leaned her head against my shoulder as I started to tell her about meeting Kristy, "I was walking down this long corridor of doors, each one with my name on it. I stopped at a few of them and saw stuff from my childhood, my graduation and then when I met you. The scenes were playing like movies, but each one of them lasted only a few minutes at a time. Kinda like a replay from a football game I guess." I smiled, "Anyway, I kept on walking and this voice told me that I'd find it. Eventually when I got to the end, someone was there waiting for me."
"Who?"
I knew Anna would ask but I wasn't sure how she'd take me telling her about Kristy, "Well, it was someone I knew and didn't expect to meet."
She lifted her head off my shoulder, "You're killing me with this anticipation. Who was it?"
"Kristy Hopkins."
"Well that's a surprise."
"You're not mad?"
Anna shook her head, "Why on Earth would I be mad?"
"She was…you know…and we sorta…before she died."
"Nicky, I've already told you that doesn't bother me. You weren't my only love either before I married you. We've already established that."
This time it was my turn to lean in to Anna, "Just making sure. It was so peaceful and I didn't hurt and the time warp travel was just the most awesome thing ever. I thought about where I wanted to go and I was there. It was all so surreal that in the deep coma, I was leaning towards staying in the light and enjoying my time with Kristy, you know? Getting to talk to her again. It was definitely an unusual yet magnificent experience."
"I understand."
I could tell Anna was hurt, "But I wanted to come home to you. That's all I wanted. I enjoyed being able to talk to Kristy again, but I missed you. I wanted you even though I knew what coming back to here meant. All the pain and the aftermath. I wanted that just so I could see you again and tell you how much I love you."
Anna perked up, "You'll get past it though, Nicky. You're made of stronger stuff than that. You proved that just by being alive now. It's all because you're smart and tough."
"I don't feel that way. I break down at the smallest thing and everything I see reminds me of that…that box." I looked around the gardens, "The mulch over there, it just…" I felt another wave of panic about to hit me, "It smells like dirt and it just reminds me." Letting out a huge sigh to hopefully suppress my sob, I shut my eyes tightly to hold back the tears, "It was all I could smell and it was overpowering, just so damn overpowering. I became numb to everything except that smell. The swamp cooler in the hospital room clicks on and off and it reminds me of that fan. The sunlight coming through the window reminds me of that light near my feet." I had contained my tears long enough, "Damn it."
"Nicky, stop." Anna dug around in her pockets until she handed me a travel size package of Kleenex, "Your mother gave them to me." Using her fingernails, she pulled the plastic wrap off and handed me a wad of tissues, "Let yourself cry. Let the emotions out. It's just you, me and the IV pole, and I doubt the IV pole will judge you for anything."
I had to laugh through my tears, "What'd you name yours?"
"When I was shot, it was Oliver. This time, it was Patrick."
Anna helped me pick out a name for my IV pole and we decided on the name Rhonda because of the song 'Help Me Rhonda.' I took her advice and had a good, solid cry out in the private confines of the rock garden with no one around me to see me break down. In between my sobs, I revealed parts of what had happened to me, but not many. I didn't want to upset Anna more than necessary. "I recorded a goodbye note to everyone, but the hardest part was saying goodbye to you."
When Anna started to sniffle, I handed her back the package of Kleenex, "Nicky…"
"I know, I know. You're not supposed to get emotional."
"I'm pregnant. Flower commercials get me emotional."
I once again let out a laugh through my tears, "It's just I don't know. I reached a point down there I guess that I knew I wasn't about to make it out, but I never gave up hope that someone would find me until the very end. I was about to just do it and Warrick found me. If he ha…" I stopped myself. I didn't want to tell Anna that if he had been a few minutes later, she'd be preparing for my funeral. "I saw my own funeral. You were there with my family but Grissom and the preacher were just being rude. Grissom advertised for my job opening and the preacher told me I was selfish. Oh, and I was naked also."
Anna giggled, "Well, we do come in to this world bare assed. It'd make sense that when we get to the great beyond, we're also bare assed. I wonder if we're all naked in Heaven?"
"I had clothes on up there, or wherever it was I went or at least the part where I met Kristy I was clothed. When I was at my funeral I wasn't." I told Anna more about the funeral, but neglected to mention my time in the morgue. That was just too twisted for me to tell her about given every thing we had been through, "Oh, and Kristy wanted me to tell you something about the baby."
"What?"
"She said it's a girl. I even got to see her."
"Oooh!" Anna squealed, "What'd she look like?"
"Remember that pink onsie that Catherine gave us?"
"Yeah."
"There were these windows up there. That's how I was able to see you. Anyway, Kristy showed me a window and through it, I saw our daughter sleeping in a dark wooden crib but she had on that pink onsie that Catherine gave us. The CSI in training one."
"We haven't bought a crib yet."
I shrugged my shoulders, "I'm just telling you what I saw."
Anna looked pleased, "So, it's a girl?"
"I don't know. I didn't want to tell you, but Dr. Lindley thought she saw boy parts at one of your earlier ultrasounds, but she knew you didn't want to know, so she told me." I smiled, "But if my biology lessons still hold true, it has to be either a boy or a girl."
"Ha ha, Nicky." Anna playfully pushed me before taking hold of my left hand, "I'll have to get you a new ring."
"Yeah." I rubbed my left hand, "I'm still kinda pissed they cut it off when Bryan saved yours."
Anna fidgeted with her wedding rings before looking down at the faint tan line where I wore mine, "It's okay, Nicky. When you get out of here, I'll stop by the jewelry store where I got yours and I'll get another one. That ring is just an object. It's replaceable." She kissed me on the cheek, "You're not."
"Kristy also mentioned a name."
I heard Anna snort, "Did she tell us what to name the baby?"
I laughed, "No, but she did tell us that we'd get a sign."
"A sign? Like a garden gnome holding up a piece of cardboard that says 'Name your baby Melody!' or something?"
"No." I felt myself relaxing with the situation we were in. It was so nice to have someone acting normal around me, "She just said we'd get a sign and we'd know. She also mentioned August seventeenth as something happening that day."
Anna was lost in thought a minute, "Baptism maybe? I don't get what it could be…" She trailed off as she thought, "I guess we'll find out in a couple months."
The two of us stayed outside a bit longer before the same nurse as before told us to come back in because of lunch. I helped Anna get situated in her wheelchair and sat down in mine as we were both pushed back inside.
Lunch came and went, followed by dinner. As the night wore on, my team members began to file in the room. The only constant noise in the room was the television, currently tuned to some sports channel, quite possibly done so deliberately so I'd feel more at home but the gesture was oddly calming. Even though my physicians had been hammering in my head to rest, I hadn't really been getting any of the rest that I needed. Between the nightmares and the visitors, my mind was racing too fast.
There were things that I needed to talk about with my team. I needed to know, but I hadn't been able to find the words or the proper time to ask them. I really didn't want Anna in the room with me, but when nightfall came and she went back to the hotel with my parents, it was usually Catherine or Greg in the room with me and I really wanted to talk to all of them at once, especially Grissom. He wasn't one of the ones who normally stayed with me at night. All of us knew that he was good at a lot of things, but there were two things he wasn't good at: relating to people and showing people how much he cared about them. Such was the case now. He showed he cared in ways different than others. Catherine and Greg stayed with me. Warrick kept me up to date on sports scores and tried to keep my mind at ease, telling me about his girlfriend, Tina. Sara was one to sit quietly in the room with me and just be there for me, which was fine, but Grissom was Grissom and there wasn't a thing any of us could do to change that.
It was another full day before they were all back in my room and I had my chance and at that moment, I wished I was someone else. It's not something I've never wished before, but I was feeling it. It's the strongest desire I know and I've known about it since I was a young child. Ever since that babysitter. To be someone else. To not have been there and for someone else to have gone through what I had and to have gone on, blissfully ignorant of the whole thing. I suppose I was being selfish for wishing what I went through on someone else, but humans are a selfish species. I listened to Catherine and Sara talking lightly about one of their cases when Grissom mentioned something about the PD needing my statement as soon as I was well.
I sighed sleepily, "What happened?"
Anna, Warrick, Sara, Grissom, Greg and Catherine cast quick and confused glances at each other before Grissom responded, "You don't remember?"
For the love of toast, how could I forget? I was buried underground while ants ate my eyeballs. I felt it best to keep the sarcastic thoughts in check, "Yeah…I mean I remember, but why? Who did it?"
Warrick looked somewhat relieved, "A man named Walter Gordon. His daughter, Kelly, is serving a nickel for accessory to murder."
I frowned and shook my head a little. I had worked so many cases over the years that individual cases no longer stuck out. I remembered the gory ones and the first ones I worked as well as the more infamous cases, but this one, I was drawing a blank. Murder was just too common of a crime for me to remember all of my murder cases, "Was it my case?"
"No, it was three years ago." Grissom looked over towards Catherine, "It was a day shift case."
I was still confused, "Then why me? Why not go after day shift?"
"It wasn't about…" Grissom stopped himself before finishing as he looked over at Anna who had her eyes fixated on him, as anxious for answers as I was, "It was random."
I felt numb as I sat there, hearing Grissom talk but not really listening. I hadn't actually heard anything that he had said after "It was random." I could still hear him, though it was now just a low buzz in the back of my mind, but the fact that Walter Gordon kidnapped the CSI that just so happened to stumble upon that crime scene upset me more than it should.
The coin toss.
I snapped my attention back to Grissom as he droned on about the day shift case where Kelly Gordon got arrested as I spied Warrick just behind Catherine. It dawned on me why he was keeping his distance. He was worried I'd be mad at him and to a degree, I was. I knew it was nothing more than a good run of bad luck that put me in that situation. Had that coin landed on the other side, it would have been Warrick and he'd be lying here in bed while I hid behind Catherine, not wanting to make eye contact with him. Seeing Catherine as she shifted her weight to her other foot reminded me of how she handled the situation that night.
"I'm too busy to play favorites…"
My anger shifted. Had Catherine actually done her job and assigned the cases to Warrick and me, he might have wound up underground, but just in all likelihood, it would have been me. All of us, except Grissom who seemed to be blissfully unaware of anything related to the female gender, knew that Catherine had a sweet spot for Warrick and probably would have given him the assault case that night anyway, just to keep him from having to dig in the trash off of Koval. I felt a wave of nausea hit me and Anna must have picked up on it because she slid the bedside table over towards me with her foot and I grabbed the puke bucket that the nurse had left and I held on to it, begging the nausea to go away so I wouldn't have to revisit what I had for breakfast in front of my team.
It was then that I decided that sometimes it's better to be clueless about what's happening around you rather than to know every bit of information that would silently kill you. This was one of those times.
Grissom apparently noticed I wasn't paying attention when I reached for the puke bucket, "Nick?"
I let go of the puke bucket and looked up, "Yeah?"
"Did you hear anything I just said?"
"Yeah, yeah. Walter Gordon was getting revenge on CSI for putting his daughter behind bars. Completely random."
"Well…" Grissom sighed, "He's dead. He got what he deserved I guess."
"No, he deserved to be pulled apart by horses but the law said I couldn't do that." Catherine looked annoyed, "He deserved something a lot more painful than how he went."
'So breathe quick, breathe slow, put your gun in your mouth and pull the trigger. Any way you like, you're going to die here'
Those cold words had never really left me and I knew that I'd never be able to actually forget that heartless voice, no matter how hard I tried. This mini powwow Grissom had arranged wasn't helping me much. I let my gaze fall to each member of my team as Grissom rambled on. Sara looked like she wanted to be anywhere but here, but that was normal. She, like Grissom, didn't do too well in social situations. Catherine was nervously shifting her weight from her left foot to her right. Warrick was still hiding and Greg was the only member of my team remotely relaxed in my presence. The only one left was Grissom. I listened to him continue to talk about Walter Gordon in the past tense and it reminded me of a college professor reading from a history book. No emotion, void of any feelings. That's how he did things.
"In any event, it's over."
Grissom's tone brought me back down to earth. I had heard that before. I think it was him telling me repeatedly at the hospital as I was waiting on Anna to wake up from surgery that it was over. Nigel Crane was dead. Anna killed him saving my life. He couldn't hurt anyone else and it was over. Everything they were saying all boiled down to one fact: It doesn't matter. "I guess so."
It may have been over for them, but it certainly wasn't over for me and it wasn't over for Anna. She and I both had a lot to deal with.
The twinges and aches in my body hadn't gone away and I was still healing from the ant bites and muscle stiffness as well as a broken nose. When my pain pump beeped, my eyes diverted from my team over to the plastic box that was attached to Rhonda. Cathy had told me it was set to dispense a certain amount every now and then at an interval determined by my doctors and the medication dosage had been lowered since I moved down to a regular floor. If I was in pain, I did have control over a control that allowed me to have an extra dose every now and again. The cord to that was hanging over the railing of the IV stand was what the nurses called it a happy button. I used it a few times in the ICU, but it always made me drowsy and I'd fall asleep. Since I had next to no medical training and was worried about overdosing, one of them explained to me that I could press it a hundred times in an hour and it'd only give me a set amount of pain medication; I'd never overdose. I didn't want to have to rely on the medicine, no matter how much I probably deserved it at the moment with my sides and muscles protesting from being used. Against my better judgment, I hit the happy button and relaxed when I felt the medication start its way through my veins.
After that, everyone began to file out. My parents came and left, going back and forth to Summerlin to help my sisters with the house. My dad had busied himself taking care of our horses with our barn kid and I'm sure dad was thankful for the distraction and the vague sense of normalcy. They stopped by again just before dinner was served and stayed a few minutes, reminding Anna of her eight o'clock curfew. My mother took a special interest in making sure Anna stuck to what Dr. Lindley had said and made it one of her responsibilities to care for her daughter in law and future granddaughter.
The attendant brought the dinner tray by my room and I tossed Anna my cornbread, as was our custom. That was about the only thing I couldn't stand was the hospital version of stale cornbread, but Anna liked it and I was glad to give it to her. I took the plastic top off and was greeted to a dinner of watery mashed potatoes, green beans and a meat type substance that the menu described as homemade beef pot roast, but I saw neither anything homemade or beef pot roast in the smashed up concoction that was before me. It looked more like Alpo.
"You looked miles away when Grissom was talking."
I stabbed a few green beans with my spork, "You noticed that?"
"It's pretty hard not to. Wanna tell me about it?"
I managed to swallow the bland green beans and reached over for the bottle of Pepsi my dad had brought me, grateful that at least it had flavor, "I just kept thinking about what Griss was telling me. It was random. The whole night started as random with that coin toss."
Anna looked confused, "What coin toss?"
"The night it happened, Catherine was on her way out to another call. She handed us two assignment slips and told us to duke it out. Warrick and I flipped for it and he won, leaving me with the case I got which well, you know the rest." I stirred the runny mashed potatoes with the bland gravy, "I just kept thinking about what would have happened if I won? Would I have taken the call out I got? What would have happened if Catherine actually delegated the assignments to us? Would I still have gotten the trash run? Would I still have been the one to get kidnapped?" I gave up on trying to eat the bland, watery hospital meal and shoved the bedside table away from me, "The whole situation just left me bitter." I shook off the nagging feeling about being underground and about to die and changed the subject, "How are you feeling?"
Anna groaned, "Bloated. Tired. Every muscle in my body aches. You know what I found out?"
"What's that?"
"According to The Journal of the American Insect Lovers Association magazine or whatever it was called that Grissom left, the average gestational age of a fruit bat is only two months. Two!"
"I don't get it…"
"Think about it, Nicky." Anna pulled the blanket in her chair up closer to her chest, "A fruit bat has a gestational period of two months. Two! I could deal with two months of morning sickness or two months of not seeing my toes, but nine is pushing it."
Now that made me smile, "Has your due date changed?"
"Nope. Dr. Lindley is still holding on to the August eleventh date for now. She told me at my last appointment that it could be earlier or later. She mentioned that dreaded C word again as a possibility."
"C-section?"
"Yeah."
"Well, if that's what it takes…"
"No!" Anna lowered her voice when she realized how forceful she sounded, "No. I'm not having a c-section. Leah will be born naturally without any drugs. I'd love to do a home birth, but I know you won't let me."
I shook my head, "No wife of mine is about to pop a squat in a closet and squirt out Thing."
"Nicky, it's a little more advanced than that. I could have a birthing pool in our bedroom and there'd be a registered midwife there and Cathy is a nurse and I'm sure if I asked, she'd be there. It'd be controlled and I'd be closely monitored and I could do things on my time table instead of some doctor telling me when to push. Women have been having babies like that since the dawn of time."
"And I'd feel better if you were in a hospital so if anything happened to you or Thing that there'd be medical intervention closer than a midwife with a chainsaw."
Anna pouted, "I still wish I was a fruit bat."
An idea I had made me laugh pretty hard when I got a vision of our daughter being a fruit bat and hanging upside down from the ceiling and the two of us trying to catch her with a net. When I told Anna what I was thinking, she laughed with me which was a sound that I realized that I missed more than I had known. I had hardly heard anyone around me laugh since this happened, especially laughing like this, "Thank you for that."
"For what?"
I asked Anna to get in bed with me and she did and after she was settled, I covered both of us up, "You're supposed to be on bed rest. I guess it doesn't matter which bed it is you're in. Thank you for laughing with me like that. You're one of the few people who isn't afraid to show emotions around me."
I felt Anna snuggle closer to me, "You're welcome."
There wasn't a comfortable way for her to lie down in order to sleep which was part of the reason she hadn't been able to nap at all during the day. It took a little bit of adjusting and rearranging, but finally Anna became still and draped her arm across my stomach.
We didn't say anything and before long, her slow, rhythmic breathing lulled me to sleep as well.
A/N: Thanks for being supportive about my last chapter. I always get uneasy when I go outside the norm and delve deeper into the world of fantasy. Much appreciated for the reviews that everyone has left and I expect more reviews for this chapter. Nick will be released from the hospital next chapter, Grissom gives Nick a present and expect things to become rocky at the Stokes house as he deals with PTSD the way I feel he should have dealt with it rather than how we were shown he dealt with it.
