Okay, so you guys don't know me and can't get me if you don't like this. All credits go to CSIaddict for the story line – but you CAN'T let it end this way, I'm too depressed to handle it. SO NOW TO SPOIL IT ALL ------- or is this the dream?
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Imagine a musty old cellar, ropes and roots hang interchanged from the ceiling and walls. In some cases the roots have grown into the floor.
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Nick regained consciousness in the hospital, he was so cold, was he still in that awful room? "Sara?" She was caught in the chains, no, she had been shot, "Oh, god, is she dead?" He feels something holding him down, has he been caught also? "Greg? What's happening?" he mutters as he passes out.
A nurse walks in shortly after without noticing his momentary consciousness. She frowns as she reads the fever on the instrument panel. She could see her patient shiver as it rose. The IV's needed to be replaced and his oxygen tubing repositioned. He had apparently been restless for a short time. "At least he isn't in a coma," she thought.
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*Dreaming?* Nick's POV.
I need to know find where Sara is, all these rooms…had he found her or was he still looking for her. The pain came again, "Have I been shot?"
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Nurses' station: (After a loud noise)
"Well, that would wake the dead if anything would, Richard. Better be more careful – loud sounds like that could make someone think there was a gunman in here."
In the parking lot outside the hospital, Catherine helps Sara from her car. "If I didn't realize what a stubborn jac-, you're just too stubborn to quit aren't you, Sara!"
"Catherine, I have to be here. Somehow, I can keep him quiet and he rests better. I've slept myself out for today. And Greg will pick me up in an hour or so. Go ahead to work, tell Grissom I'll keep you all informed."
Catherine insisted on going with her to the hospital station. Nick's condition was still serious.
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*Nick's POV*
She had been there too - but he took a shot for her, didn't he? He was so confused. His chest hurt, from the gunshot? He was stumbling through a musty hall. There, at the end, that was the room where he would find Sara.
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Sara and Catherine walk in, not speaking as the look at the man they both call their friend. "He nearly had me out of that room when that loose board fell. I guess the sudden noise made him off balance because he stumbled and fell. His gun came out of the holster and that's when his gun went off."
Catherine walked over to him as Sara finished speaking. She brushed his hair back trying to soothe him, "Grissom and I checked his gun. We reported the problem to the manufacturer. Hopefully no one else has been hurt by the defect in safety switch."
A beret hides Sara's head wound. "He could have died because of me," she tells Catherine. "Well, thank goodness Greg remembered about that old house--"
Catherine broke in before Sara could speak what they all had feared. "His uncle really left the place in bad condition,"
Sara changed her thoughts. "If I hadn't wanted to explore it none of this would have happened."
Catherine smiled at Sara, "His head is just as thick as we've always told him, Sara, and when he wakes up and finds out how he rescued you from those stupid ropes and tree roots … " They both grimaced and chuckled at the thought of dealing with his ego after his heroism.
"Has Greg decided what he's going to do with the property his uncle left him?" Sara was absent-mindedly holding Nick's hand in hers as she spoke.
"I don't think the house can be saved but someone else might want to recondition it." Greg's soft voice came from the doorway. "The place has never appealed to me. Too "Vincent Price" scary movie type." Nick's hand tightened on Sara's as he heard him in his dream.
"Let her go, Greg." Nick was speaking to a shadow in the doorway of the "rope room". His voice sounded weak, his normally clear tones husky from his pneumonia. There was a desperate tone to it that only Catherine noticed. She straightened and frowned for a moment.
Walking over to Greg, she whispered in his ear. The look he gave her as she spoke made her want to shake him. He stepped over to the side of the bed however, "Okay, Nick, if she means that much to you," he smirked up at Sara. "I'll take this side." He paused. "Okay, buddy, there's your woman."
Catherine frowned at him again and raised her eyebrows. "Let's get her to some help," he finished as he tried to manipulate Nick's dream, "The ambulance should be here by now." Sara stared, her mouth wide open, at Greg. Nick sighed and slumped. As the nurse re-entered the room, they could all see him begin to sweat as the temperature gauge showed his fever go down.