Enmity

By EB

©2004

Chapter Three

After a busy night, Gil made it back to the hospital around nine the next morning. Nick's color, he noted with relief, was much better, and some of the glazed look was gone from his eyes.

"Yeah, better," Nick said when Gil asked how he was doing. "Think maybe I just needed some sleep, you know? Pretty tired."

Gil nodded. "Glad you're feeling better. What does Dr. Dominguez say?"

"I think they'll spring me today, depends on some tests, I guess." He shrugged and yawned. "Not really sure."

"Do they have any idea yet what this IS?"

Nick shrugged. "Not that they've told me. I think they're down to testing for freakin' bird flu and shit like that." He said it with an eloquent curl of his lip. "Now if they start talking Ebola or something, then I'll get worried."

"Well, I don't think it's Ebola."

Nick snorted and grinned. "Nah. Just some stupid stomach flu, I guess. Dunno."

Gil thought about telling him that gastroenteritis wasn't actually influenza, and nodded instead.

Dominguez wasn't around, but the day nurse told him it looked as if Nick could go home either that evening or the following morning, depending on his latest blood work and the doctor's opinion. Feeling tired and unsurprised, Gil looked back in on Nick, found him sleeping, and decided that sounded like a great idea.

His phone rang late that afternoon. Groggily, he answered it, and heard a male voice say, "Mr. Grissom? Dr. Dominguez."

"Hi." Gil clawed his way to a sitting position, licking his dry lips. "How's Nick?"

"Doing quite a bit better. I'm going to keep him one more night, since we're still waiting on a few reports, but if there's no change I'll discharge him in the morning."

Gil nodded to himself. "Still no idea what's been causing all this?"

There was no mistaking the frustration in the doctor's voice. "I'm more and more interested to see what the CDC has to say, frankly. I can't find a reason for it. All his tests show clean."

"But he's better now."

"Quite a bit."

"That's good. Thanks, Dr. Dominguez."

"Wish I had something more substantive to offer."

"Understood."

He planned to stop by the hospital on his way to work, but a cranky phone call from Brass sent him in the opposite direction a couple of hours after the news from Dominguez, and by the time he did a bit of triage with an irate suspect, it was too late to visit. Fine. He'd go in the morning. Nick might need a lift home.

Nick looked so much better the next day, Gil wondered at it all anew. He'd shed a few pounds, jeans hanging a little on his hips, but his color was its usual robust shade of health, and his grin and headshake said he was more than ready to be discharged.

"Feel fine," he said, shrugging. "Hungry, man, I'm starved."

Gil uttered a short laugh and grasped the handles of Nick's wheelchair. "Do me a favor and don't overdo it? Remember, you just spent nearly three days flat on your back."

Nick was out of the chair before they actually reached the truck. "So you want me to come in tonight?"

"Tonight? No. Rest, get your strength back."

"I told you, I feel fine. Don't I look fine?"

Gil smiled faintly. "You look fine. Yes. But I think another day of rest would be advisable. What did your doctor say?"

Nick settled into the passenger seat, looking a little disgruntled. "Two days," he admitted. "But –"

"Two days it is."

Catherine showed up at Nick's condo about ten minutes after they got there, bearing chicken soup and Gatorade and a few containers Gil wasn't quite sure about. When he left, Nick was slurping down soup and chattering animatedly with Cath about a case they'd been working on before his illness, and Gil took home a bit more reassurance that everything was getting back to normal.

And normal it stayed, from all appearances. Nick came back to work, cases were solved – it all felt pretty damn good.

So Gil was doubly startled when he saw Mobley standing outside his office on Monday evening. Mobley, and Ecklie, and Gil's heart sank.

"Gil." Mobley gave him a tiny, humorless smile of greeting. "Got a minute?"

"Of course," Gil said slowly. "Conrad?"

"Affects both of us," Ecklie told him. His expression wasn't any happier than the one Gil was quite sure he himself wore. "Unfortunately."

"Budget news isn't that good," Mobley said, as if Ecklie's comment hadn't happened. They walked into the office, and Gil shut the door quietly behind them. "What we need to discuss is what this means for the department."

Gil slung his briefcase on the desk. "You tell us. How bad?"

"Definitely looking at personnel cutbacks." He raised his hands when Gil and Ecklie both gaped at him. "Look, I'm doing you a favor by letting you know almost as soon as I did, okay? There'll be an official announcement tomorrow morning." Mobley's lips thinned. "But in the meantime I need you to decide who you can do without."

"No one," Ecklie snapped. "My people are barely making it as it is. You're suggesting we cut back even further? Impossible."

"How many positions?" Gil asked quietly, sitting at his desk.

"You'll each lose two. One from the lab, one of your field personnel." Mobley lifted his chin. "Could be worse. Look, gentlemen, I've cut everything else I can. We already know the equipment budget's down to bare bones. Now we have to look at personnel. I'm not saying I want it this way. I'm saying this is the way it is. Like it or not."

"How soon?"

"Fiscal year ends in June. You'll need to move by May."

Gil nodded tiredly. A month away.

"Want my advice?" Mobley said quietly. "Make it a matter of absenteeism. I know neither of you has faced layoffs since you've been with this department. Boil it down to facts. Those employees with the most absences get the pink slips. It's fair."

Ecklie muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "Bullshit," and Gil sighed. "Thanks for letting us know."

"I'm sorry about all this." And to Gil's eyes Mobley didn't look precisely happy. Even if his piggish eyes glinted the tiniest bit. "Make the best of it. It's all we can do."

Ecklie strode out before Mobley, muscle twitching in his set jaw. Gil waited until the sheriff had exited as well before releasing a giant sigh. Layoffs. It was happening around the country. Why not Vegas, too?

He was still sitting motionless in his chair when Catherine peeked inside. "Knock, knock?"

Gil looked up. "Hey, Catherine."

"So, we working tonight?"

"Sorry. I'll be right there."

She leaned against the door frame. "Heard Mobley came by. From the look on your face I'm going to guess it wasn't to bring any good news."

He produced a faint smile. "Too true. Everyone here?"

"Yep."

"Let's go to work."

On Wednesday he was no closer to a decision. Fact of the matter was, he couldn't spare anyone. Could not conceive of laying off any one of his team, much less two.

And he couldn't talk to anyone about it. Enough rumors were flying; he didn't want to add more supposition to the mix.

He sent Catherine and Warrick to a casino, Sara to a residence for a missing person, and kept Nick to himself for the shooting at a convenience store. Protective? Nick was the employee with the greatest number of recent absences. Would it be Nick's neck on the chopping block next month?

He forced a smile when Nick grinned at him, and offered to take his own vehicle.

Two hours later he was solidly convinced it was an accidental death, in spite of the setting. But there was procedure to be honored, evidence to be gathered. He fastened a baggie around the weapon and glanced over at Nick. "Anything else?"

Nick turned and wiped a latex-covered wrist over his forehead. "Not much."

Gil frowned. In the harsh fluorescent lighting Nick's color was appalling. "You okay?"

"Fine." Nick nodded fast. "Hot in here."

"No, it's not. Come on." Gil straightened, hearing his back pop. "Why don't we step outside for a second? Get some air?"

"Okay."

The relative dimness outside hid Nick's greenish color, but his hand grasped his belly, fingers tightening and relaxing. "Nick?" Gil asked, stepping closer. "Feeling ill?"

"I'm okay." It sounded tight, between clenched teeth.

"Damn, Nick –"

"I'm not sick!" Nick grated. "I'm not gonna get sick again!"

"Come on, sit down." He took Nick's elbow, and felt the tremors in the muscles. Nick was shaking like a leaf. "Jesus," Gil whispered. "Come on."

Nick uttered a groan near the car, bending at the waist. "Not this shit AGAIN," he said breathlessly. "Aw, fuck."

"Tell me what's going on," Gil said urgently, peering at Nick's drawn face. "Nausea?"

"Stomach hurts. God, it hurts."

Couldn't be this fast. How long since they'd been out here? Two hours, a little more? Nick was fine at work. Gil touched Nick's iron-tight back. "You think you're going to be –"

Nick dropped to his knees and vomited, no prelude, near-silent.

Gil swallowed, while one of the onlookers clustered around the store's entrance said, "Aw, man, gross. That guy just horked all over himself, didja see that?"

Walking quickly, Gil grabbed a towel from the back of the truck and brought it with him. Near the passenger door Nick was still kneeling, retching with a kind of single-minded focus that made Gil's own stomach turn queasily.

"Christ," Gil muttered, leaning against the vehicle. "Oh, Nicky."

It took a while to slow down. Even before that, Gil had decided to bypass home and take Nick straight to the ER. There was nothing natural about this, not this kind of ferocity. Only salmonella, that he knew of, could kick in so swiftly and mercilessly.

Again? A part of his mind queried. For what? The fourth time in as many weeks? Or fifth? What kind of odds would Sam Braun give you on THAT, pal?

Besides, salmonella would have turned up in tests. Not salmonella.

After an utterly wretched quarter of an hour, Nick's spasms let up enough for him to take the towel, make a bleary stab at cleaning himself off. But even as Gil was helping him into the truck Nick groaned and clutched his belly again. A sprint inside the store found him with a big plastic bowl, and he flung a ten at the man behind the counter before jogging back out again. Just in time; Nick cradled the bowl to him and bent with new spasms. Grimly Gil saw nothing coming up.

"He okay?" the uniformed officer on the scene asked. His pockmarked features were disgusted.

"Does he look okay?" Gil snapped. "Would you make sure our materials get back to the lab? He needs a doctor."

"Sure. I'll take care of it."

"Thanks."

Nick dry-heaved all the way to the hospital. By the time they pulled up near the ambulance entrance, his white face was wet with tears of discomfort.

"I'll get you a wheelchair," Gil said helplessly. "You'll be okay, Nicky."

"Hurts so bad," Nick wheezed, shaking his head. "Didn't – hurt this bad before."

"Hang on."

He snagged a wheelchair and a triage nurse inside, and between the two of them they got Nick mobile and indoors. Thankfully no stops; the ER wasn't too horribly crowded, and Nick's obvious distress won them a quick trip to the back.

He knew Henry O'Donnell, the ER doc. Fifteen minutes after their precipitous arrival O'Donnell met him outside Nick's treatment room, unsmiling.

"So what'd he get into?"

Gil gazed at him and shook his head. "I have absolutely no idea. He was here a couple of times before for this."

"Yeah, I pulled his chart from the last visit. This was rapid onset? How rapid?"

"Minutes, maybe. One minute he seemed fine; the next he was – like this."

"Okay. Well, we can see what blood work shows up, and I'll get him on some IV Phenergan, push some fluids into him." O'Donnell's lined face was impassive. "I paged Dr. Dominguez. We'll see what he says."

"Henry." Gil stepped a little closer, lowering his voice. "I'm out of line asking this, I know. But I have my reasons. I want a sample of Nick's blood."

"Gil –"

"No one figured it out last time, damn it. My team is used to looking for odd things. It's worth a shot, Henry."

O'Donnell gave a slow nod, doubt still clear in his eyes. "Rachel just drew a rainbow. I'll snag one of them for you. On the QT, okay?"

"Of course. Can I see him?"

"Sure."

But Nick wasn't seeing him, that much was clear, and after a few seconds of watching that unbearable endless dry heaving Gil stepped outside again, unutterably relieved. Catherine picked up after three rings, sounding tired.

"Cath, listen. I need you to come by the ER. Nick's sick again."

She was silent for a second, and then blurted, "AGAIN?"

"Same thing. I have a blood sample, need you to pick it up and run every test we have on it."

"Jesus. Poor Nick. Gil, isn't the hospital doing that?"

"They'll do their jobs. Let's do ours."

This time when she spoke, it was cautious. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

"Hush-hush, Cath. Understand?"

"Right. Wait, no. No, I don't understand. What?"

"I want it tested for organic and inorganic trace materials. Mass spectrometry, the whole nine yards. If you don't find anything, broaden the tests. Think of it like a case. Not Nick."

"Jesus, Gil," Catherine breathed. "You sound like you think – somebody DID this to him."

Gil nodded grimly. "I'm not ruling that out. Neither should you."

"But that would mean –"

"That this isn't an illness." Gil cleared his throat. "I think Nick's being poisoned."

"Holy shit."

"He's not our colleague anymore, Catherine, he's a victim. And unless we figure out what's going on, soon, we might be doing the rest of this work posthumously."

TBC.