All in a Day
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Spoilers: Nothing specific, set mid third season.
A/N: Each chapter is told from a different point of view. I owe enormous thanks to M and J who are two wonderful beta readers. Also, I'd like to tank everyone who has reviewed this story and provided constructive criticism.
I had rather little to do with the actual case. On some level, I envy the others who got to do something to stop a tragedy from happening. It makes me feel impotent and helpless. I feel like I can't do anything. It's the feeling I hate the most.
I learned about what had happened only in bits and pieces. My first big piece came when Warrick came to see me at the hospital the day after the shooting.
When I first woke up, the first thing I thought, once the drug-induced fog had cleared enough for me to realize my situation, was that I was happy to be alive. The last thing I recalled was having driven out to the Heavenly Path estate together with Vega and Catherine. We had found blood in the yard, had gone in. Then Vega had been shot and I probably as well, but all I could remember about that was overwhelming pain and fear. I had thought that Catherine and I were going to die too. After only a few seconds of undisturbed bliss, confusion followed. There was a lot I didn't know. How had I gotten to the hospital, how was Catherine doing and what had happened to the case?
I still couldn't stay awake for very long. I drifted between waking and sleep. Sometime, it must have been late afternoon, as the sun outside was already starting to set, Warrick came in. Either he didn't knock or I was to out of it to hear it, but to me it seemed like he was just suddenly there. Not having noticed him come in, I was startled when he was suddenly standing next to my bed.
"I'm sorry, Nick. I didn't mean to startle you." He sounded troubled.
"Hi, Warrick, nice to see you too. I just didn't hear you come in. What day is it?"
"It's Tuesday, you've been out for almost an entire day. How are you feeling?"
"Drugged. Did I miss much?" By Warrick's look, I could tell that I had and that it was nothing good.
"A lot. I don't even know where to start." I saw that Warrick was battling personal demons, which probably had to do with the case.
"Just tell me, alright."
"It all went to hell, man. Catherine got Marks before he got her too. The three of you were rushed to the hospital. Then Mark's gang showed up there. They took Grissom, Sara and Greg hostage, when they were here to get the evidence from the shooting. It ended with the HRT storming the building. We found the bomb they had been building in a chemical storage plant outside Vegas. ATF disarmed it just before it would have blown up. During all that…"
"Everyone all right?" I interrupted him, I had to know.
Warrick winced, and I already knew it wasn't. I feared that Catherine might have not made it.
"Catherine's been shot too, but she'll make it. Greg's dead, he's been shot by the cultists."
It hit me hard, sledgehammer-like, and harder than when Holly Gribbs had died. I had barely known her, but Greg had been a constant at the lab, with his music, endless babbling and weird hair. I couldn't imagine that he had just been shot. Hell, he wasn't a CSI and normally didn't get out in the field. He had always wanted to, and now that he had gotten out, he'd been shot by a lunatic. Life isn't fair.
"Did you get those bastards?" I felt a sudden anger at the people who had to inflict their misery on innocent bystanders.
"We did. The HRT busted in, we also got the woman behind it all."
"Dead?" I wanted to know whether they would have to stand trial.
Warrick nodded, somehow sad. "I had to shoot her, she was going to kill Sara and me," he said, as if to justify it. I felt sorry for him. I'm not sure whether I could pull the trigger even if I had to. I don't know whether I really could have shot Daryl Marks if I had had the chance. Catherine hadn't hesitated and it was good that she didn't. Otherwise I wouldn't be here. But could I have done the same? But you can't know that until you do. And I hope I will never have to find out whether I could kill another person.
Recovery was going slow for me. Luckily the bullet hadn't hit any bone, only muscle. Warrick kept on coming by every day, but we avoided talking about the case again. We only talked about harmless stuff, sports, the news.
The day I finally got out of the hospital was the day of Greg's funeral. The doctors had wanted to keep me in for another day or two but I had insisted. Going to the funeral was important to me. I didn't see it at the time, but I think that I needed to go there, to help myself make it real.
At the funeral, everyone was there from nightshift and almost everyone from dayshift and a lot of people I didn't know. It occurred to me then that I had no idea about Greg's life outside CSI. In spite of being annoying, he had grown on me, more than I would have admitted. I regret never having spent time with him socially, gotten to know him not just as a lab tech.
Basically, I continue to carry on like I have always done. Working hard and trying to be a good CSI.