8-"He Would Have Waited Forever"
"So..." Sara asked, breathless even though she wasn't moving, "He killed him?"
Catherine nodded. "I was second on the scene, I got there two seconds before the ambulance. Oh Sara..." She closed her eyes, as if seeing it again. "It was terrible."
Tears came back to Sara's eyes. What an emotional roller coaster...
"Is that why... he started to have nightmares?"
Catherine nodded, "After your accident he took a month long vacation... can you imagine? I have no idea where he went, but when he came back, he hasn't touched coffee since. Said it was health issues... but Sara, we all had nightmares... and when you wouldn't wake up, and when your parents left... we could do nothing but wait..."
Tears came to Catherine's eyes again. "He really loves you. You know that, right? He came to your bedside every week... if you had never of woken up he would have waited there forever."
Of course she knew.
"Mr. and Mrs. Sidle, let me assure you that taking Sara out of the hospital was for her own benefit. She was depressed! I could tell-"
"So, are you a doctor, Mr. Grissom? You suddenly just know when our baby should be taken out of the hospital? You just-"
"I had every intention-"
Suddenly, the door to the bathroom opened and Sara wheeled herself out, her eyes bloodshot and puffy, looking as if being in Grissom's house was the last thing she ever needed. She paused when she saw her parents sitting on the couch, across from Gil.
"Mom? Dad? What... what are you doing here?"
"Oh Sara baby! I was so worried!" Mrs. Sidle jumped up from the couch and ran over to her daughter, and hugged her. Sara, shocked beyond movement, suddenly processed what she was doing and threw her mother off of her.
"What are you doing here, Mom?"
"Sara?"
That was Catherine. Everyone spun around to look at the bathroom door.
"What?"
"Please tell me this is a pool of tears that I slipped in."
It took a moment for the room to process what Catherine had just said.
"Oh, shit!" Sara said, looking down.
The trip back to the hospital was killer. Grissom sat in the front seat, driving the SUV with a stressed, stony look engraved on his face. Sara was huffing and puffing in the passenger seat, trying to ignore the three people in the back, who were shouting out contradicting advice to slow her labor down.
"Breathe deeply, Sara. Calming breaths in and out-"
"Breathe fast, like Lamaze classes! Hoo hoo hee hee." That was Mrs. Sidle breathing as an example.
"Sure Mom, like during the coma I had time to go to Lamaze classes." Sara wheezed out, gripping onto her stomach in pain. Catherine and Mrs. Sidle began to have a huge argument over breathing in the back, and Mr. Sidle sat in between them, a blank look on his face. The argument grew louder and Sara leaned over and whispered, "Gil, unless you want placenta as the new décor in this car, I suggest you start breaking the speed limit."
Gil hit the gas hard, causing everyone in the back to fly back into their seats, causing the argument to cease and for both the mothers in the back to yell, "What are you doing?" in unison. Mr. Sidle still had the blank look on his face, though Sara saw a small smile developing.
They screeched to a halt outside the emergency room door and Mr. Sidle and Gil put Sara in the wheelchair and Gil pushed her in and yelled to the nurse at the front desk, "We've got a baby coming!"
"Miss Sidle!" The nurse squeaked out, obviously not used to such stress. She actually jumped over the desk and grabbed the wheelchair from Grissom, and wheeled her to the elevator. All four followed her, but they stopped at the door when the nurse snapped, "No one is allowed up to surgery. This will be a cesarean section and we have to keep the room sterile."
All four began to protest as the doors shut, but the nurse fixed them all with an unyielding stare that shut them all up. The doors shut, whisking Sara up two floors but left Catherine, Gil, and Mr. and Mrs. Sidle full of adrenaline in the waiting room of the hospital.
"But we're family members." Mrs. Sidle kept saying, as if sharing chromosomes with Sara gave her an automatic back stage pass. "We should be allowed to see her."
Gil was nervous, God was he nervous. He kept pacing back and forth, not leaving the elevator, even after Mr. Sidle led Catherine and Mrs. Sidle away to sit down. After five minutes of watching him pace, Catherine got up and grabbed his arm.
"Gil, she's going to be fine."
"What do I do? What can I do? I feel so helpless."
"All we can do is wait.... again."
Warrick was sound asleep, snoring away in his condo when, in his dream, he could have sworn he heard a doorbell ring.
He stood up in bed, muttering, "Defense!" but suddenly he realized where he was and that his doorbell was actually ringing. With a grunt, he staggered over to the door and looked through the peephole and practically choked. He saw Greg, hyper as always, jumping up and down. He was saying something to Nick, who was there also, but Warrick couldn't tell what was being said. Jim was there, too, surrounded by the two hyper men, with a ticked off look on his face.
Suddenly, Greg started pounding away at the door, looking through the wrong end of the peephole.
"Warrick, sleeping beauty, WAKE UP! Sara's gonna have the baby!"
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down my clothes."