A/N: Thanks to Rosa (yet again!) for helping me with the medical technicalities. I had no idea about the mechanics of an IV, other than that it involved a needle and a bag of liquid!

When he was sure she was asleep, Grissom made his way to the nurse's station. "Hey, Rosa?"

"She's fine, Mr. Grissom, we told you."

Grissom paused. "That wasn't what I was going to ask. I was going to ask you if you could put an alarm on her IV pump. Sara never learns, and I'd bet that she'll try this stunt again."

Rosa smiled. "One step ahead of you. We're getting ready to set up a mainline with a heprin lock. That way the IV'll be in all the time and we'll just switch it every two days or so. Trust me, if she tries to escape that needle again, we'll know. There," she said, pointing across the hall. "That's the alarmed pump we're setting up. Is Sara going to fight us when we do this?"

Grissom shook his head. "Even if she did, I'd control her. But no, she won't fight. She'll just wait until no one's paying attention and then try to take the setup apart or something. Which is why I'm not leaving her room in the foreseeable future."

Rosa twitched an eyebrow and leaned slightly forward. "Does she know how much energy you're expending trying to keep her well?"

A slightly bitter laugh escaped Grissom's throat. "Oh, I doubt it. She thinks of me more as a jailer than a savior. She also thinks I'm just here to protect my investment, so to speak."

"Well? Aren't you?"

"No! I'm here because she . . . I . . . oh, forget it. I'm here because I want to be here."

"If you ask me," the nurse said, examining her grape-colored fingernails, "Sara's the one you should be telling all this to, not me or Bruce. Not that we're not happy to catch up on hospital gossip, of course, but this isn't getting you anywhere with that pretty girl," she said, tipping her head in the direction of Sara's room. "Why are you telling this to me, anyway? Why not just suck it up and tell her?"

Sigh. Why did everyone keep asking him that? "I can't just 'suck it up,' as you put it, because Sara already has a boyfriend."

"Oh, that young guy?"

Grissom winced. "Yeah. Him."

"Don't sweat it. He treats her like a sister when they're alone."

Grissom said nothing, just shook his head slowly and turned back toward Sara's room. "We'll see," he muttered as he walked away from Rosa.

"You're not seeing too much right now, Mr. Grissom!" she laughed after him.

Sara glared stonily at Grissom, refusing to speak. Dr. LaBianca looked from one to the other, shaking his head. "Children! Can we stop the staring contest and start giving Sara her medicine?" He was answered by two deep frowns. Choosing not to notice, he continued, "I'll take that as a yes. Grissom, if you'd step away from the bed, please?"

Grissom stepped away just far enough for Rosa to squeeze in between him and the bed. She harrumphed, but he wouldn't move any farther. "Thanks for the space, Grissom," she said hotly, picking up the doctor's method of address.

"Now, Sara. We're starting you on a regular course of Keflex. I think you knew that already. We're also setting you up with a semi-permanent IV. No more getting the needle just for the afternoon, since you obviously aren't a big fan of that." She smiled at the her deliberate obtuseness. "You're getting a mainline now, and it'll be staying in 24/7 until Bruce gives you a clean bill of health."

"Why? You're not going to be giving me the drugs all day, every day. Why does it have to stay in constantly?"

"Because, Sara," Grissom answered, cutting off the nurse's exasperated explanation, "you already pulled out one IV. They can't trust you with the basic version, so they're not giving you the opportunity to mess with it again. There's an alarm on this pump. If you take that needle out, the nurses will know as soon as you do. And I'll be rather unhappy with you."

"So what else is new?" Sara said under her breath.

"I heard that, Sidle." He sat down on the end of the bed, nearly crushing Sara's feet. "Why can't you just do what's best for yourself?" he asked in a quieter voice. "Why do you always have to fight me, even if you end up spiting yourself?"

"There!" Rosa announced. "IV's in. Now stay put, Sara," she added, giving the woman in the bed a ferocious look, "or you'll have to be restrained."

Sara blinked. They couldn't really do that, could they? Her mind was still working furiously as Rosa and the doctor left the room. "They can't restrain me, Grissom, can they?"

"Officially, no. But we all know you're just doing more damage to yourself when you do things like this, and I, for one, won't argue if they do have to strap your arms down." He scooted up from the foot of the bed to the middle. "Sara," he said, brushing a strand of her hair out of her face, "why do you do this to yourself? I know you don't want to lose your hand. I know you want to get out of this hospital. And despite both those things, you pulled out your IV. You stopped taking your antibiotics. You left yourself open to a much more severe infection, which you even managed to acquire. Why, Sara?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. I don't like not being in control, and in here I have no control over anything. I can't stand being here, Gris."

"Well you and I are stuck here for about three more days, thanks to your last stunt. Nothing I'm saying is getting through to you, Sara. Do you want me to leave? Will you cooperate then? Tell me."

Sara closed her eyes to the physical and mental pains that her mind had combined into one. "I don't know. No, I don't want you to leave, I just want you to get me out of here."

"You're not a prisoner here, Sara, despite how you're acting. You can leave here at any time, but be very aware that if you leave this hospital before your infection is completely gone, you've got a 90 percent chance of losing at least one finger to it."

"I don't want to lose my hand," she whispered. "Maybe I need some Valium or something for while I'm in here."

Grissom shook his head. "They don't dispense that like candy anymore, remember? Dr. LaBianca would need to write you a prescription, and I don't think he thinks you need it. You just need to rest, Sara. Stay in your bed, sleep, and relax. Don't fight the treatment. I'll be here with you, and I don't like hospitals any more than you do."

"Especially," he added, "when it's someone I care for in the bed."

Sara made a rude noise in response.

"Why won't you believe that I care?" he asked angrily. "I've never done anything to make you think I don't care about you."

"I'm not discussing this, Grissom. I thought you wanted me to relax, and this is not my idea of a relaxing conversation."

"She WHAT?" Nick exclaimed. "She pulled out her damn IV?" he asked Grissom incredulously, as though he hadn't heard the first time. "How could she be so dumb?"

Grissom shook his head, for once forgetting his animosity toward the younger man. "I don't know, Nick. Maybe you should be the one staying here with her. She won't listen to anything I say."

Nick shook his head. "It's not just you she won't listen to, trust me. She's not buying anything I tell her either. I just can't believe she stopped the antibiotics on her own. That's . . . she KNOWS how bad the consequences of that can be."

Grissom shrugged tensely. "You tell her that, Nick. I don't know what to do with her anymore."

Nick took a good look at Grissom for the first time that afternoon. The older man was a shade paler than usual and his skin seemed slack. His blue eyes weren't twinkling as they usually did. He hadn't shaved in days, judging by the stubble, and Nick knew he'd been subsisting on coffee and cookies from the hospital's coffee shop.

"Gris, you're not doing anyone any favors the way you're going. You need to start taking care of yourself, then you can start trying to take care of Sara. You look like you're about to collapse. Have you even slept lately?"

"A few hours," Grissom said defensively. "I'm just worried about her."

"So am I," Nick said, "but right now I'm just as concerned about you. You're letting yourself go to pieces over this, for god only knows what reason." He stopped. "Is this because of me and her? Are you that jealous?"

Grissom blanched, a happening that would have fascinated Nick if he weren't so worried about the man. "I'm not . . . Jealous? Me? Come on, Nick."

"No, Grissom, you come on. You're lying to yourself. Listen, Sara and I aren't dating, ok? We were just going out to dinner and stuff. And we're done with that now, too."

Grissom said nothing, only looked at him with a confused expression. His jaw worked a few times. When he finally found his voice, it came out harshly. "Then why have you two been running around like you're young love embodied? Don't joke with me right now, Nicky."

Nick shrugged. "She wanted to convince herself that she was over you. I played along, hoping that you'd figure out what the hell you were doing . . . but no luck, I guess. You are seriously one of the most oblivious people I've ever met!" He pointed back toward Sara's room. "So why don't you go try talking to her about that instead of lecturing her on bed rest? I bet she'll be a lot more cooperative."