My soundtrack: "Fade Away" by Seether, "Cutt Off" by Kasabian

Chapter Seventeen: A Seat Here Alongside Me

"It's what you do with it that counts."

Sara was drawn back to the present when an ambu breathing bag was pressed into her hands. She looked up and saw it was connected to a clear tube that was protruding from a tiny slit at the base of Greg's throat. She'd missed the entire procedure. Her nausea tripled. There wasn't as much fresh blood as she expected around the incision, but Sara was sure this lack of bleeding was not just thanks to Tiffany's skills.

"Can you hold that for me?" the medic repeated. "Very still, that's it. I need make sure the tube is correctly placed and secure it in before we move him. Give him a deep breath once every six seconds by pressing on the bag like this." Sara watched dumbfounded as Tiffany placed her own hands over Sara's and pressed the bag. "Can you do that, Sara?"

She wasn't sure, but she would try.

"Nick, call dispatch. Tell them we're going straight to Desert Palm in this chopper. We can't wait for the Medi-vac."

Nick did as she requested. His voice shook on the radio, but only slightly and Sara met his eyes in between pushing air in and out of Greg's lungs. She tried not to look at the incision in Greg's neck as the medic used her stethoscope again to listen to each side of Greg's battered chest. She had the officer stop compressions momentarily so she could hear.

"It's as good as we're going to get right now. His left lung is collapsed. Keep giving him breaths as I stitch this in, okay? Calm breaths, Sara."

Sara nodded and tried to slow down the rate at which she squeezed the bag. She watched as the curved needle plunged into Greg's flesh next to the plastic tube, observed his bare chest rise and fall with each squeeze. She thought about how close they'd been to saving him. Just a couple of hours and he could still be alive. He had been through so much, for no reason at all…

"Hey, Sara?" Nick asked carefully. He'd been ready to tag in again on compressions, but when Sara lost all color in her face, he put a hand on her shoulder.

She only nodded again, stiffly.

"I'm good," Briggs reassured Nick, his expression hinting that he agreed Sara did not look fine.

Nick gently but decisively removed the ambu bag from Sara's hands. "It's alright, I've got this. You take a break, okay?"

Sara did not argue.

Tiffany finished suturing in the tube and she asked Briggs to stop compressions again so she could take another listen to Greg's chest. A look of shock crossed her face before she glanced back up at the small group. "No need to resume compressions. His heart is beating on its own. We should move him to the helicopter now."

As Briggs positioned the backboard next to Greg, Nick thought of something. "There's not going to be room for all of us in the chopper."

The paramedic agreed after mentally counting the number of people they now had, including Whitney. "With the amount of space the backboard takes up, three people will have to stay behind and wait on the other helicopter to pick them up. Does she need immediate medical attention?" she asked, referring to Whitney.

Nick glared in the direction of the woman, who was still yelling and struggling. "Nah, she's good until backup gets here. I'll stay here with her and Officer Sanchez and keep an eye on the scene. Sara, you stay right by Greg, okay? Officers Floyd and Briggs can ride along and help Miss York here with whatever she needs. Make sure you let them check you out at the hospital, too." Nick wanted nothing more than to stay with his teammates, but he couldn't bring himself to leave someone as manipulative as Whitney Adams in the company of a couple young officers he'd only just met.

Briggs and Tiffany shifted Greg onto the backboard and secured the straps as cautiously as possible to avoid more pressure on his chest. He was hastily loaded onto the helicopter and laid on the floor. It wasn't optimal, but the aircraft was designed for hunting down fugitives, not transporting gravely injured patients. The team secured the backboard down using straps built into the aircraft's floor that were meant for stabilizing equipment. Briggs took Nick's place at Greg's head to breathe for him, and Nick helped Sara onto the helicopter, where she sat cross-legged next to Greg's shoulder. Officer Floyd sat off to the side, prepared to be utilized if needed.

Nick gave Sara one last reassuring squeeze on the shoulder before joining Officer Sanchez and Whitney Adams. According to dispatch, the other helicopter was only about ten minutes away from the accident site. Brass and some of his guys were driving and would take longer, but they would take over the scene when they arrived.

Tiffany crouched at her patient's side. She placed an intravenous catheter and started him on fluids. She wrapped any wounds that were currently bleeding and stabilized his right arm and leg, which both appeared broken.

Sara stroked his arm gently, whispered to him though she was sure Greg could not hear her. She tried to tune out the action around her and instead focused solely on him. His heart was beating on its own. Against all odds, the man was fighting for his life. Sara only wished there was some way that she could help him fight.

Suddenly, she felt very tired. She curled onto her side facing Greg, keeping contact with a hand on his upper arm.

"Are you alright, Sara?" Tiffany's voice inquired.

She nodded against the helicopter's floor.

"Sara?"

The world was growing blurry and Sara's vision narrowed.

"Sara? Someone check on her!"

She tried to tell them she was okay, just needed some rest, but the cold surface under her was just so comfortable. She figured it was safe to sleep now, next to Greg, so she did.

"Hvorfor er du her?"

"Papa Olaf? Tilgi meg. Jeg har…ikke holdt følge med språket."

"Ikke bekymre deg. Du gjør det bra Hojem."

"Det er så mørkt."

"Det er fordi du ikke burde være her ennå."

"Jeg er red…alt gjør vondt."

"Det er på tide å gå tilbake. Å, og Hojem?"

"Ja?"

"Si hei til nana."

Thunder rattles his bones like an earthquake, decimates his eardrums, and now he's deaf.

Then the lightning: two flashes in tandem, bright as a solar flare. It melts his eyes and now he's blind.

"That's two out of five, Greggy. What shall we take next?"

That's no longer his Papa Olaf's voice.

"Tell you what. I'll leave you with touch and take everything else. Seems fair, right, since you stole nearly everything from me? That way, you can still feel all the pain I inflict on you while we're stuck in here together."

Even though he's blind, Greg can sense Whitney in front of him, reaching toward him, into him. She grabs his ribs, twists, pushes, pulls, squeezes and he can feel the bones crunching into hundreds of tiny pieces. He tries to scream but all he can do is feel, float in the anguish, and hope he doesn't sink.

And it does end, but Greg has no sense of how long it lasted. The still-fisted hand pulls from the hole in his chest and he imagines that squishy suction sound, like scraping the insides out of a Halloween pumpkin before carving it. Greg feels a small flutter in that void; a flutter that soon becomes a rhythmic thud that warms him. Whitney is no longer in front of him, but he can feel her in the distance. Lurking, waiting.

He'll never be completely safe again.

Nick Stokes was not involved in the Adams case ten years ago, and right about now he wished he still wasn't. He'd only had a chance to fleetingly scan old case information after Sara gave the name to Grissom, and Whitney Adams quickly ascended his list of 'scariest goddamned people I've ever met'. She reached top five—an impressive feat with Nick's unlucky history. The twelve-minute stretch between when Greg and Sara's helicopter left and the second helicopter arrived felt like hours. The woman screamed to the point that Nick thought she might pass out. But when she stopped, she talked about Greg and Sara, and Nick wished she'd start screaming again.

He was mostly able to tune her out, and Officer Sanchez helped somewhat by trying to distract her when she focused too intently. Although, Nick still wanted to throttle her, and he was almost grateful that the rookie cop was there. A witness. The woman was already lucky that he could only get a safe shot at her shoulder and not something more serious.

When the other helicopter arrived. Nick made a final phone call to D.B., who was currently at the warehouse documenting evidence. He asked Nick to proceed with his plan of escorting Whitney to lock-up, but insisted he not try to get any information out of her before Brass could be present. The team wanted to prevent any potential future issues with this case. D.B. also told him that Ecklie wanted to meet with him before the night was over.

Great.

Nick briefed the crew of the helicopter on who Whitney was, basically told them not to so much as look at her, as Officer Sanchez cuffed her to a bar by one of the seats and made her sit down. Nick and Sanchez sat on either side of her. She finally seemed to have resigned to the fact that she was caught. Or, she lost enough blood to be complacent. Either way, the quiet was a nice change of pace. She stared straight ahead—unfortunately for the officer that sat across from her. He squirmed uncomfortably and pretended to be engrossed in conversation with his comrade next to him.

The medic that was on this helicopter looked Whitney over, placed a temporary bandage over the gunshot wound on her shoulder as well as some of her cuts from the car crash. He asked if Nick could uncuff her so he could put her arm in a sling. Nick told him there was a better chance of running over a unicorn on the way to the station.

About a half hour into the return trip, the pilot was on the radio coordinating with the police station to drop Whitney off. Nick wished he could get an update on Greg, and hoped Sara was doing okay. She was understandably distraught, but Nick hoped that she could forgive herself for whatever she thought she did wrong.

A small movement off to the side registered in Nick's periphery. It was so slight that he only noticed because it was the side Whitney was on, so he was hyper-vigilant to it. He instinctively reached for his holster. Whitney and Officer Sanchez suddenly rose as one. Nick jumped up also, only a fraction of a second behind, but Whitney's shout of "stop!" halted him from removing his weapon from its holster, as did the sight of the pistol held in the woman's uncuffed hands and pointed at the back of Sanchez's neck.

The next several moments passed in impossibly slow-motion, and unfortunately so did Nick's reflexes. He kept a hand levitated over his weapon, held up the other in complaisance. The rest of the team, perhaps minus the pilot, began to grasp what was happening. One seasoned officer that was currently positioned behind Whitney as she faced Nick, started to make his move. Nick shook his head at him, but he didn't see or didn't care.

Whitney glanced back, noticed the officer at the last second, and pulled the trigger. The front of Sanchez's neck blew outward, bits landed on Nick's front, the bullet kept going, passed so close to Nick's ear that he felt the burn. The helicopter lurched

what if they hit a unicorn?

and Nick lost his footing and went down, but he wasn't alone. Those who weren't seated and buckled in, including Whitney, also hit the floor hard. Nick drew his weapon, pointed it at the blonde woman. The aircraft lurched again, tossed them a foot into the air before throwing them back down. Nick risked a glance toward the pilot and almost wished he hadn't. The bullet had finally stopped—at least Nick assumed it had because the glass of the front window was still intact. However, more gore was sprayed on the windows, and the pilot was unmoving, collapsed across the controls.

The helicopter began to spin and plummet simultaneously. Both Whitney and Nick ditched their weapons to grab hold of something solid. The centrifugal force wrenched at them, tore items from the walls of the chopper, and Nick made himself as small as possible. Something hit his back, then thunked against a wall, and he thought it sounded heavy enough to be a human.

Nick had enough time to think 'shit shit shit' before the helicopter hit vegetation then solid earth and the impact switched off his lights.

Two hours after coming upon that car wreck, Sara sat on a bed in a curtained-off area of the emergency room at Desert Palm Hospital. The doctor that saw her insisted on hooking her up to an I.V. catheter for a few hours to rehydrate her. Catherine sat next to Sara since there weren't any chairs around. The blonde continually checked her cell phone for updates, but one of her hands remained on the younger woman's knee.

The cut on Sara's head was cleaned and sutured. She already had her blood drawn for the lab work, as well as radiographs and an ultrasound performed. So far, everything was coming back in the normal ranges—except, of course, the indications of dehydration and stress, which was expected. Considering what Greg went through, Sara figured she got off easy.

Not long after arriving at the hospital, Catherine received news from Captain Brass that Harris's body was discovered at the accident scene between the roadway and the sedan's final location. He'd obviously been thrown out during the wreck, but Brass mentioned a couple of other findings on the man's body that were…unusual for a car accident. They would need to wait on the autopsy report to know for sure.

Catherine relayed to Sara that Harris was found deceased, but did not elaborate for now.

They had yet to receive any news on Greg. Every half-hour, Catherine stopped at the nurses' station to check, and each time she was turned away and told to wait for the doctor to come and find them. They could only hope that meant Greg was still alive, so in a way they dreaded the moment a doctor rounded that curtain.

Sara hated being immobile. She would never describe herself as a fidgety person, but staying in one place for too long when there were clearly other things to be done made her a bit anxious. In her own home she could easily relax when there was time, but now did not seem appropriate.

Feeling her cellphone vibrate in her pocket, Catherine quickly answered it after glancing at the caller ID. "Willows."

After a moment Sara felt Catherine tense and remove her hand from her knee. She stood and walked to the curtain, listening intently, then put a trembling hand over her mouth. "Oh my god. When did they lose radio contact?"

Sara sat straight up.

"Yeah, okay. I'll tell them. As soon as I find out about Greg I'll come help. Keep me updated. Thanks," Catherine hung up the phone and she turned to Sara, shock still visible on her face. "That was Brass again. The helicopter that was transporting Whitney Adams to the hospital—dispatch lost contact with it about thirty minutes after it took off."

"Oh no. Nick?"

She only shook her head. "No one's heard anything. He's not answering his phone. They've sent out more search teams. It looks like navigation was disabled, so all they can do is follow the path the helicopter should have taken."

Head shaking in disbelief, Sara prepared herself to stand up. "We've got to make sure there's security on Greg. Whitney's still out there."

Catherine nodded and stood. "I'm on it. You stay here, you're…attached to things." She pointed at the I.V. pump.

Shortly after Catherine notified hospital security as well as arranged for some officers to come stand guard at entrances and Greg's room, a young doctor in clean surgical scrubs entered the room. He looked around, then hesitantly approached the two women. "Are you here for Greg Sanders?"

Sara abruptly stood up, but the doctor firmly guided her back into her seat and sat in the chair next to her. Catherine remained seated but leaned forward.

"I'm Timothy Holland. I've been working with Mr. Sanders since he was admitted. Have you been able to get in contact with his family?" he inquired.

"We're friends and coworkers of Greg." Each woman introduced herself, then Sara continued: "The crime lab is still working on reaching his parents. I think they're currently out of the country on vacation in a remote region. How is Greg?"

The doctor sighed and ran a hand through his hair, looking exhausted and somewhat flustered. "How long was Mr. Sanders missing?"

Sara began to lose patience; the doctor was avoiding her questions. "Today, I mean yesterday—" she corrected after a glance at the clock on the wall in the room. "—was seven days. Now please, Dr. Holland, tell me how Greg is doing."

Catherine placed a calming hand on Sara's shoulder, sensing her aggravation.

After another hesitation, the doctor finally conceded. "At this time, Mr. Sanders is being maintained on a ventilator and intravenous fluids, antibiotics, and pain medications. He was extremely dehydrated upon arrival; if he had any water while he was missing, it was not a substantial amount. He is two hours into a blood transfusion because he's lost a lot of blood, cumulatively, for the past week. For at least the next twenty-four hours he will need to be closely monitored for a possible reaction to the new blood.

"As I believe you know, the paramedic performed an emergency tracheotomy during his transport here, and it's my opinion that procedure saved his life. The tissues in his throat are extremely swollen and bruised, and he couldn't move as much air past the swelling as his body needed to maintain its normal functions. Further compromising his respiratory system, he had several broken ribs, one of which punctured his left lung, triggering a pneumothorax, or an air leak from his lung into his chest cavity, as well as aspiration of his own blood from the trauma in his throat."

"Was his lung punctured in the car accident?"

Dr. Holland shook his head. "No. When I was in surgery on your friend, I found evidence that some of his ribs have been fractured for several days, if not longer. Some sort of separate trauma caused the punctured lung anywhere from 24 to 36 hours ago."

Sara glanced to Catherine, and both women grimaced as they worked out the timeline of Greg's injuries. "How did he survive with a collapsed lung for over a day?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. The extent of his injuries…I've worked in emergency medicine for ten years now, and Greg's injuries are some of the worst I've seen in a living patient. We performed an MRI of his stomach and a CT scan of his entire body. Most of his abdominal organs are bruised, especially his kidneys and areas of his small intestines. His kidneys are in acute failure due to many factors including physical trauma, dehydration, and large doses of nephrotoxic drugs. We know about the chloroform, but I'm suspicious that he was given injectable sedatives at some point. There are a couple of marks on him that look like a needle was stabbed into a muscle group. We're running toxicology on his blood, but depending on how long ago the medication was given, it may not show up on the report. With his kidneys, best case scenario: we give him supportive care such as dialysis and they heal on their own over weeks or months. Worst case scenario: he'll need a transplant at some point down the road. But we will deal with those things once Greg is through this initial, most critical period."

Catherine held a hand to her chest and closed her eyes. She couldn't believe this was happening to Greg; hadn't the poor guy had been through enough?

Sara simply stood there, taking it all in resolutely with an unreadable expression on features.

"He has a torn ligament in his left knee and a broken right tibia, or shinbone. Again, those are things that we can work on repairing further along in his recovery. His right shoulder was dislocated as well within the past week; someone set it into place but the tissues around it are still very inflamed. He also broke his right humerus—the bone in his upper arm. He has several infected cuts and abrasions all over his body. We didn't close some of them with sutures yet because I expect some tissue necrosis down the road. For now, we'll keep the worst of them covered and clean."

Catherine wanted to track down Whitney Adams herself and hurt her as much as she and Harris hurt Greg. "What are his chances at a full recovery?"

"It's hard to answer that. Every person is unique in their healing ability, and every injury is unique in the way it was obtained. My greatest concerns with Mr. Sanders are his respiratory system, infection, and his neurologic health. The supporting structures around his trachea have been greatly damaged by what could only be repeated strangling attempts, and his lungs had a substantial amount of water in them. We don't want to keep him on a ventilator forever, but these things take time to heal. I fully expect him to get pneumonia at some point, which will further complicate things. Most of his penetrating wounds are infected, and he's fighting a high fever. Keeping him on the antibiotics is necessary for now, but with his organs in their current state I worry about how his body will react to the medicine. Finally, since he had extended and repeated loss of blood and oxygen circulation to his brain, we could continue to see delayed effects for years. Right now, his brain scans appear normal for his activity level, but the best way to know for sure is if he wakes up and communicates with us somehow. And his mind…he was a captive to his torturers for a week, and in that amount of time irreparable damage can be done to the human psyche. Until Greg can tell his own story, we can only guess at what else might have happened to him there," Dr. Holland concluded gravely.

"I understand. Was he…" Catherine couldn't bring herself to say the word, but the doctor seemed to know what she meant.

"There are no physical signs that Greg was sexually assaulted."

Thank god for small miracles. Nodding, Catherine thanked him for his help. She then warned him that one of Greg's captors may be on the move again. "I have already alerted hospital security, and the crime lab is sending over uniformed officers to stand guard at all of the entrances and exits. It would make me feel better if one of us could stay with Greg until the fugitive is found."

The doctor sighed, "It's outside of visiting hours, but since you said that whoever did this to him might be on the loose again, it would make me feel better if you were able to keep an eye on him. Our nurses are all very busy, and…"

Sara finally interjected after being silent for so long. "I'll do it."

Catherine nodded. After having listened to all of Greg's injuries, she was dreading even more what she had to do, but would never ask Sara to do it instead. "Dr. Holland, before Sara sits with Greg, I have some samples and photos to take for the case. I won't be long."

He nodded in understanding. Unfortunately, this was not his first experience collaborating with investigators and police over a crime victim. "He's not awake. Greg is in a medically-induced coma and will not be conscious anytime soon. Go ahead and get what you need, just mind the wires and tubes attached to him. There should be nurses around to help you turn him or remove bandages to get your pictures. Any clothes that he was wearing will be in a bag in the ICU—one of the aids there can direct you to it."

Catherine arrived at Greg's bed. His only semblance of privacy was a curtain which was now open so that the staff could easily keep an eye on him. The beds on either side of his were empty. She tried not to think of the people that once occupied them and where they might be now. She pulled the curtain halfway around the bed, being sure to cover the direction that had the most foot-traffic. She took a deep breath and turned to process her coworker and good friend.

If it hadn't been for the nurse directing her to his bed and the identification wristband encircling one of his thin forearms, Catherine thought she might have walked right by him. She approached the bed and looked closely at his face. Only closeup did she recognize some hints of the young, vibrant former lab tech she had known for so long. She had never seen him anything but clean shaven, and he was currently sporting a decent start to a beard. That along with the bruising, swelling, and cuts aided in erasing and masking his normally distinctive features. He was also thinner than she remembered.

"Oh, Greg," she combed his unruly hair with gloved fingers. "I'm so sorry this happened to you. And I'm sorry that I'm going to need to document the evidence…which right now, is you." Catherine paused. She didn't know if it was better or worse that he wouldn't be awake for this. It felt like more of a violation when the victim was unconscious, but at least asleep they would not remember the humiliation. "You understand that I have to do this, right Greg?"

The machines in the room beeped and whirred their own off-tempo answer.

She quickly blinked away the tears that threatened to fall and sighed. Forcing herself to focus on the task at hand, Catherine placed her evidence collection kit onto a mayo stand next to Greg and opened it. She pulled her hair into a ponytail, rolled up her sleeves, and donned a new set of examination gloves. She pulled the supplies that she needed from the kit and once more approached his unconscious form.

Fingernails. Greg would have fought back.

Indeed, Greg's fingernails were dirtied with a mixture of blood and other filth. Catherine scraped what she could from under his nails into small paper envelopes. The whole time, she observed his bruised features for any signs of discomfort. She swallowed the discomfort she felt at the emptiness there. The knuckles of Greg's hands were bruised and abraded. Using a sterile piece of tape, she carefully stuck it to each of his knuckles, pulling it off slowly and hoping the blood and skin cells that now adhered to the tape did not only belong to Greg.

Catherine then began to process Greg's visible injuries. His bare torso on its own took more than thirty images on her digital camera to completely document. Two nurse aids came in when requested, helped to turn Greg and allow Catherine to image his back. The bruising was horrendous. Colors ranging from dark purple to brick red to olive green mottled his rib cage and stomach. One especially dense bruise on his lower back near his spine was the size of a large fist. Catherine remembered what Dr. Holland said about acute kidney damage and shuddered.

All his cuts appeared to be precisely placed and inflicted by the same weapon. During their most recent conversation, D.B. mentioned finding a small paring knife, covered in blood, near the accident scene.

Greg's neck was especially difficult for her to document. At least three individual ligature patterns could be easily distinguished, along with multiple incidents of each of those patterns. There was obvious swelling, bruising, and even tears where the ligature pulled and pinched his skin. When a bandage was pulled away for her to snap an image, a long, deep cut was revealed and Catherine wondered how he hadn't bled out.

But he nearly had, and his still stark-white features were proof of that. Greg did his part by simply surviving, and now it was their turn to catch Whitney and ensure their case would be open and shut as quickly as possible. That way, Greg and Sara wouldn't have to worry about the Adams sisters ever again.

She hoped that Nick was alright; she still hadn't heard any updates about him. Why couldn't things ever be easy for them?

A/N: Thanks for reading!

Here's the Norwegian translation:

"Why are you here?"

"Papa Olaf? Forgive me. I ... did not keep up with the language. "

"Do not worry. You are doing well Hojem. "

"It's so dark."

"It's because you shouldn't be here yet."

"I'm scared ... everything hurts."

"It's time to go back. Oh, and Hojem? "

"Yes?"

"Say hello to Nana."