Her hair was dirty. She was exhausted. Her head hurt. If that doctor took longer than five more minutes to come talk to them she was going to turn and run.

Sara watched the door to the recovery room. A doctor who she hoped was the doctor had gone in about fifteen minutes ago. He had yet to come back out. She hoped that was not because someone inside was in trouble. Especially not Grissom.

Finally, the same doctor emerged from the recovery room. Marie was hovering at his elbow and pointed to Nick, Sara, and Warrick waiting on the padded orange bench. He walked over to them.

"You're the family for Mr. Grissom?" he asked, the fatigue of the end of a twelve-hour shift evident on his face.

"Yes," Nick said simply.

"I'm Dr. Washington. Mr. Grissom is stable and in recovery. Barring some extreme event, he will survive. His recovery will be long, though. I hope someone is prepared to be responsible for his care." The doctor watched Nick and Warrick both turn uncomfortable and look away.

"He'll be cared for," Sara said immediately.


The doctor gave a short nod and continued, "One of you may go in to see him now. Tell one of the nurses and they'll take you in. He is going to be in the hospital for at least a few weeks." The doctor checked his watch. "My shift is over in ten minutes. If anything happens, the nurses will call me. Good night." And he disappeared through a pair of double doors at the end of the hall.

"He did a nice job of telling us practically nothing," Warrick complained before the hall was filled with complete silence again.

The three looked at each other. Finally, Sara covered her mouth with her hand and said, "I'm not going to be the one to go in."

"Why not?" Warrick asked her, surprised.

"Because it's my fault he's in there. One of you."

Warrick stared at Sara but spoke to Nick. "Has to be you, then, man. I'm just her husband."

"Okay," Nick said slowly. "Anything you want me to tell him?"

"Sorry," Sara said. Nick looked at her sympathetically and Warrick gave her an indecipherable look.

"Find out how to contact Catherine, if you can," Warrick said. "And tell him we're here for him."

Nick nodded and walked over to the nurse's station. A minute later he found himself standing beside his sleeping boss's bed. Grissom's face was swollen from being under anesthesia, and he looked pale. He was hooked up to more monitors and IVs than Nick cared to count. He wanted to talk to him, but he didn't want to wake him up. He would not even be sure how to without hurting him. He stood for a moment, silently willing Grissom to wake up. When it became clear that he was going to be sleeping for a while, he walked back into the hall where Sara and Warrick were talking quietly.

"How is he?" Sara asked as soon as she could jump up and walk to Nick.

"He was sleeping. I didn't want to wake him up," Nick said, ignoring the look of disbelief on Sara's face.

Warrick made a decision in the back of his mind. "Nick, give your keys to Sara. I'll give you a ride home. She can stay here with Grissom. If she doesn't talk to him tonight she's not going to be able to make herself."

"What the hell's with the psychology, Warrick?" Sara asked angrily. "You can't just leave me alone in a hospital in the middle of the night."

"She's right, Warrick," Nick said, worried about Sara.

"No, she has a way home if she needs to leave. And she's not alone," Warrick added quietly. "Grissom's here with her." He walked toward the doors. Nick tossed Sara his car keys and a worried look before catching up with his friend. Sara watched them, feeling sick and betrayed.


She was also angry about what their action said about Grissom. They did not even care that they were forcing Grissom to depend on the person who did this to him.

She put the keys in her pocket and walked over to the nurse's station.

"Hi," she said to the nurse who had spoken with them all earlier. "Is there any way I could be told when Mr. Grissom is moved to his room so I could go with him?"

"Of course." Marie smiled at her, concerned. "Would you like to go sit with him now? It would be better if he didn't wake up alone again."

Sara shook her head. "I don't want to be the first person he sees when he wakes up. I just want to know where he is. I'll wait out here until he gets moved."

Marie shook her head. "When your uncle woke up earlier he asked me to find you. I think he would like for you to be with him."

Sara looked at the clear, open eyes of the nurse and decided to trust her. She allowed herself to be led to the side of Grissom's bed, and automatically sat in the chair that Marie pulled over from the wall.

"If he wakes up and needs anything, his call button is right there," Marie told Sara, who nodded in reply. The nurse offered her an attempt at a reassuring smile, and Sara thanked her before turning her attention to Grissom.

He looked awful. There was no more tactful way to put it. He was lying seriously hurt and in pain, and it was her fault. She had almost lost everything because of her own carelessness. In a matter of hours her Grissom had gone from being perfectly healthy to needing a huge amount of care. She had every intention of doing as much as he would let her to help.


Assuming, of course, that she could bring herself to talk to him. And that he would want to talk to her.

She had no idea that was not angry with her. In her mind it was entirely her fault, and she could not see him seeing it any differently. It seemed so clear.

The enormity of the situation was dawning on her. Grissom was not going to be back in his office in a week. When he eventually did get back to work, if he did, she might have already lost her job. Her last logical connection to Gil Grissom. Now that she was fairly sure he was going to survive, she was realizing that she might lose him anyway.

She sat in the chair staring at her hands, acknowledging that they had probably saved a man's life that evening. She felt her mind pulled in a hundred directions. She did not want to be sitting there. She wanted Warrick or Nick or, even better, Catherine to be sitting here while she packed her bags and got out of Las Vegas. She wanted to run.

Even with all of this and more going round for round in her mind, she somehow slept.

~*~*~*~*~

Sara was awakened by an orderly and a nurse who were getting ready to take Grissom to his room. They also woke him up as they worked, and he found himself struggling to focus his eyes and his mind on the things around him.

He noticed Sara as she raised herself up out of her chair and stood looking at him with a panicked expression. His eyes cleared for a moment as they locked on hers, and she offered him a small smile. It was all she could do.

It was another forty-five minutes before he was settled in his new room and everyone except for Sara had left. She stood in the corner fidgeting with the unraveling lip of the paper cup she had brought her coffee back in five minutes before. He tried to care that she was seeing him like this, but he could not bring himself to even notice. He watched her curiously, as well as his unfocused eyes would allow him to, waiting for her to say something. The painkillers were having an awful effect, muddling his brain worse than it had been right after he woke up from surgery.

"We couldn't find Catherine," she finally said to her coffee cup.

"Okay."

"I'm so sorry," she told him, and even in the virtual darkness in the room he could make out her eyes shining wet with tears again.

"Don't," he said, hoping the word was enough to let her know that he did not blame her. It would be wrong to, at least in his opinion. He blamed himself as her superior for letting her break protocol, and he mostly blamed the bastard that did it, whoever it turned out to be. He wondered who was investigating this case. She saved his life.

"I let you get attacked and you tell me not to apologize." She shook her head; she could not accept that he would not blame her. "I can not believe how badly I failed you. I'm going to lose my job, but it's not even important, because I've already lost your trust. I almost cost your life! Because of me we all almost lost you. I really --"

"Sara!" he cut her off in a surprisingly strong voice. "Not your fault. You're safe." She looked at him in surprise, and wondered what he meant by 'safe'. His eyes were now closed and he looked worse than he had ten minutes before. They really should not have been having that conversation so soon, she realized now. It was just hard after beating herself for hours not to want to immediately talk to him about it. "Sit down," he managed. She carefully sat down in the chair beside his bed and he offered her his one hand that was fortunately free of tubes and wires. She held it carefully in both of her own and stroked it until he fell back to sleep.

So he was not upset with her. He still trusted her. He would probably even fight for her job. Still, it did not matter, because she blamed herself enough for a thousand people.