Enmity
By EB
©2004
Chapter Nine
Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked.
"Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat.
"I don't know," Alice answered.
"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."
(Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland)
Distantly he heard Catherine's voice, crisp and terrified, snapping into her phone. "Yes, goddamn it, he's having a seizure! Now!"
They'd grown an audience. It annoyed him that he noticed that; he should have been entirely focused on Nick's convulsing form. But he let Warrick put his wadded-up jacket beneath Nick's head while Gil looked around, saw Greg and Archie and Bobby and Hodges all standing in the doorway, faces slack with identical shock.
"Jesus," Sara gasped, and Gil whipped back around in time to see dark vomit fountain from Nick's open mouth.
"Turn him," Warrick snapped. "Don't let him breathe that shit in."
They got him over onto his side. Under Gil's shaking hands the seizure seemed to ease, but Nick was drooling more of the dark liquid, dark from blood, Gil thought, and fought down a shudder.
Bobby elbowed his way in. "Here." Towels, where'd he gotten them? But Gil felt almost tearfully thankful Bobby was mopping it up, hands covered in latex. Christ, they should all be wearing gloves, that fluid might as well glow in the dark. And the smell, god almighty, yes, definitely blood, old blood.
"Archie," Bobby said crisply. "Wanna see if Robbins is around?"
Archie's mouth opened, and then he spun and took off.
Bobby's infernally calm eyes met Gil's. "What's he got?" he asked.
"I don't know. We haven't figured it out yet."
"He's in shock, Grissom. I need to put a blanket over him, something, keep his temp up."
Frozen, Gil stared at him, and Bobby made a face and barked, "Blanket! Something! Come on, people!"
Gil's paralysis wore off as people started to move. Blankets, more towels, and Bobby directing it all with a kind of calm confidence that astounded him, only backing away when Robbins showed up.
"Good God," Robbins muttered, awkwardly lowering himself to sit next to Nick's limp form. "I trust you called an ambulance?"
"Yeah." Catherine hovered behind him, her face blanched of all color. "He had a seizure, Al, a long one."
"Nice work, Bobby," Robbins remarked. He glanced at Gil. "I assume this is related to Nick's earlier problems?"
Gil nodded. "I can't imagine what else it would be."
"He's got internal bleeding. That's hypovolemic shock."
Gil nodded again, this time without replying.
The ambulance arrived a few minutes later. By that time Nick's vomitus was streaked with much brighter red, and Robbins' expression was far grimmer.
Standing, Gil strode over to grab Greg's arm, pulling him aside. "Test those fluids," he snapped. "If you don't find anything, test them again, and again. We MISSED it, Greg, and I'm sick of it! I don't care what it takes – you stay right here until you FIND it. You got that?"
Greg gaped at him, looking horrified, and nodded dumbly.
"Where are you going?" Catherine called when he followed the gurney out into the hall.
"To the hospital. I'm not leaving Nick alone right now. Call Brass; I want a 24/7 watch. No questions; you got that?"
She nodded, her eyes bright with belated tears. "Got it."
The question of Nick being alone was ultimately moot; his trauma room in the ER was so crowded with medical personnel, Gil couldn't have stayed with him if he'd tried. He didn't. He stood instead by the nurses' station, making and taking an endless series of phone calls. Brass; Catherine; Robbins; Greg, several times.
The ER doc, a bone-thin man named Shihab, finally gave him a report nearly an hour after Nick's hasty arrival. "We're doing what we can," he said in a faintly accented voice. "He's intubated, receiving as much fluid as we can get inside him. We'll get him up to MICU in a few minutes."
"What about the blood work? Analysis? Do you know what's causing this?"
Shihab shook his head. "Not yet."
"Christ." Gil took out his phone again and dialed Greg's extension. There was no answer. He thought savagely that had better be because he was working too hard.
It was Dominguez who finally sat down with him and gave him a full report. "Don't have to tell you, Nick's in trouble," he said heavily. His glasses were on crooked, and Gil strongly suspected he'd been sleeping in that tee shirt before being called to the hospital. "Hypovolemic shock, the beginnings of renal failure. Without knowing what the hell CAUSED this, I'm not too confident about his chances." He sighed. "You still suspect poison?"
"I can't see what else it would be. He crashed so fast. Right in front of our eyes."
"There's no sign of continued seizure activity. But he's comatose, and – Well." Dominguez paused. "I need to call his family," he said slowly. "They may need to make some decisions shortly."
Hearing it was like pouring salt in an open wound; Gil physically recoiled, shaking his head. "He has to make it," he whispered. "He can't die. Not like this."
"Look, I'm sorry, Mr. Grissom, I truly am. But all bets are off at this point. We're treating this as aggressively as we know how to do. The rest is up to him."
Gil nodded numbly. "I – have his contact information. At the lab. His parents. You'll need the number."
"If you can get that for me soon, it would be best, yes."
"Of course."
Within a couple of hours of Nick's arrival in MICU, there were two uniforms on duty. Brass's bluff features were as grim as Gil had ever seen. "All right," he said thickly. "I believe you now."
Gil suppressed a savage urge to say, Too little too late, and nodded instead. "Will you stay until I get back?"
Brass gave him a narrow look. "Thought you were sticking around."
"I can't reach Greg. And I need those test results."
"I'll be here. Not goin' anyplace."
"Good."
He tried Greg's extension again on his way out of the hospital. This time the fact of no answer struck him as ominous. With a muttered curse he hit the speed-dial for Catherine.
"Grissom, we got a thirteen-car pileup about an hour after you guys left." She was shouting over a lot of background noise. "Somebody's gotta keep working around here, you know?"
He gritted his teeth and said, "You're right. I won't keep you. I'm heading for the lab now."
"Find Greg," she bellowed. "Last I saw he was working on it."
"Will do."
Twenty minutes later he was pulling into the parking lot. He glimpsed Warrick in the hallway, in conversation with Bobby and Archie, and stalked up to them. "I need a report," he snapped. "Anyone seen Greg?"
"He was here," Archie said, looking worried. "Saw him a while ago."
"A while ago doesn't interest me. I want his report now."
Warrick's jaw tightened. "We'll find him."
"Send him to my office. I need those results."
His own pace slowed when he reached his office. God, the worst duty he ever had to perform, looking up this kind of contact information. Knowing the why of it, knowing that a family was going to have the worst of all possible days. He wrote down Nick's parents' home number, and closed his eyes briefly before digging out Dominguez's card and dialing. Cowardly of him, letting the doctor make that call. But he couldn't. Part dread, part pure disbelief. Nick wasn't going to die. Not now, not after all this. No. Unacceptable.
"We got his pressure back up a little," Dominguez told him breathlessly, after he recited the number. "Kidney function hasn't tanked any further. If he holds like this, he's got a chance."
"Thank God," Gil said shakily. "Please keep me informed?"
"You do the same. We need to know what's doing this to him. I can't treat something I don't recognize."
"Understood. I'll be in touch."
Warrick strode inside a few minutes later. His expression was thunderous. "Found this." He handed Gil a sheet of paper.
Glancing at it, Gil gave a curt shake of his head. "Unacceptable. This says there were no anomalous substances found."
"It's all I got."
Gil stared at him. "Did you find Greg?"
Warrick licked his lips. "Didn't find jack," he replied evenly.
"What? Where the hell is Greg?"
"Nowhere," Warrick said in that same lethal voice. "He ain't here. He bailed."
Gil's mouth opened, but he couldn't say a word.