Sara stood in the hallway, staring blankly at the doorway to Grissom's room. The doctors and nurses were all inside, the chaos of whatever was happening in there now safely out of her view. An outside observer may have thought she was just calmly waiting in the hall to meet a friend, daydreaming, a little bored, but calm. They couldn't have been further from the truth. Inside, Sara's mind was busy with a million thoughts.
'No,' she thought. 'It can't be, it's not fair. He just woke up…' She felt suddenly sick to her stomach, like the emotional roller coaster that she had been living on for the last few weeks had taken a turn that really didn't agree with her. She didn't want to deal with whatever was going on in that room right now. She couldn't. She just didn't have the strength anymore. Sara turned to walk back down the hall away from Grissom's room and ran right into Warrick.
"Hey Sar, I was just coming to see Griss. Which room is his?" asked Warrick, gesturing to the hallway in general.
"The one with the code blue," Sara responded, almost stoically. "The one with all the doctors and nurses running around. The one where something is very wrong…" Sara's eyes glossed over with tears, her voice cracking with the overwhelming emotion.
Warrick reached out and pulled Sara to him in a strong embrace. "Its ok Sara," he spoke into her hair as he kissed the top of her head and rocked her back and forth in comfort. "Grissom is strong, he is going to make it through this." They stood like that in the hallway for what seemed to Sara to be an eternity, but in reality was no more than a minute or two. She pulled back from Warrick and looked up at him, her face streaked with tears and mascara.
"I need to walk," she stated simply, and turned to walk down the hallway towards the elevators. Warrick followed, not wanting to let her out of his site when she was in such a state. They stood in silence at the elevators, waiting for the shiny sliver doors to open. Inside the elevator, Sara stared mutely at the lighted numbers, slowly descending to the ground floor, 11, 10, 9, 8…
"Sara? Are you ok?" asked Warrick, tentatively. Just then both occupants of the elevator were just about knocked off their feet as the elevator came to a sudden halt somewhere between floor 2 and 3.
"NO!!" screamed Sara, suddenly coming to life again. "ITS NOT FAIR!!!" She kicked the shiny sliver doors, which were unyielding to her assault. They remained closed, holding her apart from the outside world. She hit the door again, cursing. Her right hand broke open, her blows now leaving red smears of blood on the silver metal doors.
Warrick reach forward and pulled her away from the door, saving her from further injury.
"Whoa, Sara. Breaking both hands won't make the elevator move."
She slid down the wall to the floor and pulled her knees to her chest as she dissolved in tears. "Its…just…not…fair!" she said between sobs.
"I know Sara." Warrick sat on the floor next to her and put his arm around her shoulders.
"I spent the last…two and a half weeks…in the hospital with him. I talked to him…I told him everything…I can't lose him…I…need…him." The sobs were almost making her voice impossible to understand, but Warrick got the general idea. He was rather shocked to hear Sara talk so openly about her feelings for Grissom. Sure, he knew they were there, everyone in the lab did. But it was always something that went more or less unspoken. Sara and Grissom were both, by nature, such private people. They just didn't show their lives to people around them. Grissom more so than Sara, but she wasn't exactly the most open person either. Seeing her having a breakdown over her own life was a bit overwhelming. The only real emotion he had ever seen her show was for victims of crimes.
But here she was, sitting on the floor of a stalled elevator, crying her heart out over a man in a hospital room on the twelfth floor. As her sobs subsided, she sat up straighter, pulling herself from Warrick's sideways embrace.
"I'm sorry," she said, wiping the tears from her cheeks, smearing the mascara even more. Warrick reached into his pocket and pulled out a Kleenex, which he offered to Sara. "It figures, the first time in years I wear mascerra I cry and it runs all over."
"Its fine, Sara. It's all going to be fine."
"I know. I'm sorry I broke down, I'm fine."
"Sara, you don't always have to be the strong one."
Sara looked at him, mildly surprised. "The strong one? No, the strong one would not be having a nervous breakdown on the floor of an elevator. The strong one would be fighting her way through the doctors to get to his bedside and be with him."
Warrick's cell phone rang, and he reached into his pocket to retrieve it.
"Brown," he answered. "Hey Catherine, yeah, we know the elevators aren't working, we are stuck in one of them. Yes, Sara is with me….uh huh…uh huh…we don't know…I'll call you when we know…bye."
Sara looked at Warrick with an expectant look on her face.
"Catherine, Nick, and Greg are downstairs. Apparently all the elevators are out, they can't get up to his room either." Her face fell.
"I was hoping they were up there and would know something…I love him you know."
Warrick smiled. "I know Sara."
Just then there was a buzz on the elevator intercom.
"Hello? Is anyone there?" came a crackly voice.
Warrick reached over to push the 'talk' button. "Yeah, there are two of us here, can you get us out?"
"We're working on it, sir. Are you both alright?"
"Yeah, fine."
"We're trying to restore power to the elevators now, just stay calm and relax. It shouldn't bee too long."
Sara had a sinking feeling in her stomach that they would not make it out of the elevator in time.
Warrick looked at her, almost reading her thoughts. "It's ok Sara. We'll get there in time."
"Yeah, I know," she said. But inside she thought, 'what if we are already too late?'