Notes: My surreal chapter! *displays proudly* And thank you all for the lovely feedback on the last chapter - - even if some of it was a little bit homicidal. Hey, I told you I'd let Greg survive this one, didn't I? I wouldn't lie about something like that!
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Chapter Six: Sputter
**
When Greg was seven, he built a toy plane out of balsa wood and flew it in his backyard. It was fragile and on its second flight, the wind snapped it in two before it could even touch the ground. He cradled the splintered wood in his hands for a moment, feeling sad, and not really knowing why. It wasn't as if the plane was anything particularly special - - there were a million more of them in the house in their separate pieces, waiting to be assembled - - and he had built and effectively destroyed things before. His father was always complaining about his carelessness that way.
Eventually, he realized that it was the lack of flight that chafed at him - - seeing the delicate plane, almost butterfly-like in its ability to soar, cut down.
The voice was deep, almost heavy in its tones. "Hand me your wallet."
He wanted to, but his arms were stiff tree-branches, chained to his sides. He felt like frost had grown on his lips to prevent speech.
In New York wintertime, he'd licked the jungle gym as a dare and tasted the frosted steel, hating the pain as his tongue tore away. He'd gained some kind of respect that day, however - - the geeky kid with the unruly hair had been brave enough to lick the frozen metal, and it was a stupid thing to be known for, but everyone seemed to like him better for it.
The man behind him sounded impatient when he spoke again. "Give me your wallet. Don't make me blow your fucking head off."
How warm would the bullet be when it slipped inside his skull?
Would he be able to feel the blood before he died?
Before, the gun had been at his temple, and the bullet had been blisteringly hot, like a fire set inside his brain, and he had seen nothing but black, and his first thought had not been of death but blindness. He'd stared and seen nothing. He hadn't felt any blood, and as he had slid against the wall, his fingers scraping against the bricks, he had thought of hell.
Graduation day from high school. Kissing his girlfriend on the cheek to tell her goodbye - - they were heading to opposite ends of the country. Shaking hands with various acquaintances and friends, swearing to keep in touch and doubting that either of them would. The sweet, summery scent of the grass. His father's absence and his own impending stay at Stanford.
The wallet fell from his fingers and dropped to the ground - - a soft clatter of leather.
It was scooped up by an anonymous hand, safely enclosed in a black glove. No prints. No witnesses.
The gun didn't move from the base of his skull.
Greg tried to talk, tried to even beg for his life, if that would produce some positive result, but the only thing that came out was a weak, scared whisper, "Grissom . . ."
His third day at CSI, one of Grissom's spiders had gotten out and Greg ended up being the one to retrieve it, smiling proudly and a bit nervously as the tarantula crawled over his arm. Grissom had taken off his glasses and thanked him, looking a bit puzzled at the appearance of the new lab tech, with his out-of-control appearance, calmly bearing the lost spider. The touch of that many legs to his skin had tickled.
The gun jabbed at him, and for a second, he recoiled forward, and away from its touch, almost falling, thinking that it had fired. A blinding pain erupted near his jaw - - not a gunshot, but the butt, striking the side of his face. The bone didn't crack, but it popped out of position with a sick thrusting noise, and his teeth slid over his tongue, reaping a sudden line of hot blood that filled his mouth.
He spit a mouthful onto the parking lot as feet thundered behind him. Too many feet. Too many moments. Too many seconds and too far away.
Too little; too late.
"Greg."
Grissom. I brought you your tarantula back, remember?
A swift touch of a hand to his swelling jaw, and the blood falling from his mouth.
You thanked me. Said that everyone else was afraid of it. I didn't want to tell you that I was a little scared, too, because it was the first time you had anything nice to say.
"My God, Greg."
You sound worried. I'm sorry.
Sorry-sorry-sorry. You have to believe me; I'm so sorry.
"What happened? Tell me. Tell me what happened, okay?"
I died. I'm dying. I'll die.
Can't think. Can't breathe, Grissom, and it's way too late for you to try and save me.
Fade to black.
**
The rest of it was hazy, assembled from pieces of conversations he heard when he was busy wavering in and out of consciousness. There was no order, no sense, rhyme, or reason. He heard the dialogue but could not connect it, and his only deliberate thought was that it reminded him of when he had gotten a bad case of the flu when he was fourteen, and had stayed in bed for almost a week, staring at his ceiling, sweating through his sheets, seeing mirages drift over the molding. Bits of his father had worked his way into the fever dreams. At one point, Nathan Sanders had rested a cold washrag against his son's forehead, and Greg remembered him whispering, "Get better," but something about the whisper had spoken of a command instead of a concern.
Someone's hand on his.
The sound of someone crying.
Cotton tearing.
A needle, sharp and silver, sliding into his skin.
"You need to calm down, Gil."
"I can't. You weren't there. I heard him screaming, Catherine."
The sweet haze of drugs.
The clear, antiseptic smell of too-clean hospital sheets.
"He wouldn't stop fighting me. I could barely keep him still. Most of those bruises are from trying to hold him while he was thrashing around. It was like a seizure, he just - - wouldn't stop. God, Catherine. His eyes were wide open and I don't think he saw anything. He just looked . . . desperate. He kept lashing out at everyone. None of the paramedics could get him to stop until someone got a damn syringe in there. I've never seen someone . . . terrified, like that."
A flashback memory of groceries spilled on the ground - - his own, and then Grissom's, as the cart fell over with a clanging noise and an array of squashed fruits filled his vision with their bright colors. Some of his blood splashed over the smooth skin of a peach. His hand struck against a box of Lucky Charms and popped through the painted cardboard. Tiny marshmallows glued themselves to the sweat between his fingers.
Sara's dark eyes as she stood over him.
The smell of Catherine's shampoo.
"What happened, man?"
"I don't know, Nicky. He couldn't tell me."
Sunlight falling in cross-patches over his bed.
Nick said that they hadn't ever wanted to pull his curtains closed.
But this wasn't a coma, this time. This time, he was dead, wasn't he?
"Do you want to call him?"
"His father? Are you kidding me?"
Third voice. "I don't want that bastard anywhere near here. Don't call."
He was aware of his own breathing - - the steady rise and fall of his chest. He saw the paisley pattern of the sheets move with him. Someone was holding his hand. Catherine? Grissom was standing by his bed, eyes intent and darkly focused. A coffee cup, crushed, lay on the table next to him, a pale smear of whipped cream across the lid.
Grissom said, "Greg? Can you hear me?"
It was like having tunnel vision. He tried to nod and was swept away by another tide.
Someone was praying. He thought it might be Nick - - yes, that had to Nick's voice, warm and broken, rising and falling over the prayer.
He was praying for mercy.
Nick was praying for him.
Did he really want to be God's responsibility?
"His wallet's gone. We think it might have been a robber. Just wanted money."
"Fuck," someone said in a shivering voice, the word flat and bare in the silence. "How could they even have guessed? What were the odds? Why did it have to be him? Why then? He was getting better. We were just going grocery shopping, for God's sake."
A doctor's voice; smooth, modulated. "I understand that this is a setback to Mr. Sanders's mental recovery - - "
Sara: "You don't understand anything. You can't possibly."
Someone else said, "He doesn't deserve any of this."
"We know that," Grissom said. "We talked about it already."
Everything seemed sepia-toned, likes something out of an old cowboy movie, the kind that Nick might like. A spaghetti western. Catherine was smoothing the sheets around him, and he touched her arm to thank her. Her skin felt so cold. Maybe she was just as dead as he was. He didn't want Catherine to be like him, though, and the thought made tears rise upwards.
"Don't cry, sweetie," she said, like he was a child. Her hand, warmer, brushed against his eyes and scattered teardrops over his brow.
Greg tumbled backwards into sleep.
"Do you remember when your tarantula got out?"
"Yeah. You found it."
"I wanted to impress you."
"You impress me, Greg. All the time."
"Something's wrong with me, isn't it?"
The sunlight was warm on his skin. It felt almost like the frost was melting away from his lips, and he was being pulled into some bright oblivion. The images grew clearer.
Hail Mary, full of grace.
"Grissom, are you praying?"
Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.
Some of us are already dead.
**
The full-color of the world came back later, and the first thing he saw was his own window - - the glaze, and, indeed, open shades. Light landed on his face, warming him. He could see a tiny piece of the Strip from where he was lying. The room was utterly quiet and still. Grissom was in the chair by his bed, reading a battered paperback. It looked like a dime novel. He'd never figured Grissom for the fiction type, but things were always so unexpected.
Grissom must have seen him, because the book wilted to his lap. "Greg? Are you awake?"
His lips felt cold. "I'm awake."
"You - - you were delirious earlier."
I remember. I remember more than you know.
"I wasn't nervous when I was looking for the car," he said. It was hard to talk. His throat was dry and every word felt like it was flaying him raw. "It was nice outside. Warm. I wasn't even thinking that something could happen, but it did."
Grissom's eyes were so very distant. So very sympathetic. He reached one hand forward.
"I'm so sorry . . ."
"Don't touch me." He pulled away, his body sliding over the mattress. His hip banged against the metal frame. It sent a tremor through him. "I knew," he said, his voice rising in pitch until he sounded almost shrill, "I knew that I wasn't safe. You all told me to trust. To let go. To stop walking on eggshells because no one was going to hurt me. You all promised and no one was there."
"I found you bleeding," Grissom said, stricken. "You were on your knees and you were bleeding. You were screaming. You scared me."
"What did I say?"
A slight, painful pause. "That you were dying."
"You're such a liar," Greg said, and turned away, like he was tired of the conversation. "That's not what I said at all and you know it. Where's your honesty now, Grissom?"
He heard the muffled sound of Grissom swallowing. "You said that you were dead. The rest of it was just screaming."
"Like an animal, I bet," Greg said, and he could hear the satisfaction in his own voice. "I probably sounded just like some kind of trapped animal." He looked at his hospital gown and thought he could make out the tracks of a needle on his upper arm from all the sedatives. They'd even stuck him like an animal, too. "So tell me the truth - - is this what you think I deserve?
"Is this what you were praying for?"