Greg looks like he is dying and it hurt a lot. His chocolate brown eyes are sunken into his face, black rims around the outside. His skin is tight across his cheekbones and Greg looks a lot like a bag of bones. He has lost so much weight that Nick thought he might starve to death; gaunt looking and Nick threw up after one visit. All of Greg's hair has either fallen out or been shaved off and in place of his spiked mess is a blue beanie that only came off for showers.
He still has one treatment left and according to the doctors, Greg is showing some improvement. Some being the key word here. No specifics, no news of tumors totally gone from Greg's spine, but just some improvement.
Greg hasn't left the hospital since his third treatment and Lindsey has taken over the responsibility of taking care of Greg's fish.
Nick eventually took up residence in Greg's room, using an extra bed that the nursing staff provided for him around the fourth treatment. Nick put up posters of Greg's favorite movies and bands and brought in his lover's PS2 and boom box, plus his favorite CDs. And just to annoy Greg, a couple of country CDs.
Greg has come to tolerate country music more than when they had first become a couple. Nick agrees to listen to Greg's horrid music if he is willing to listen to a couple of Nick's country CDs. Although Nick has never really caught onto Greg's genre of music, Nick occasionally can find Greg humming a country tune or singing a country song in the shower.
Nick hooked the PS2 up to the TV and at night, Nick lies next to Greg in his bed, arms wrapped around his boyfriend's waist, and they watch the old movies they both love so much. Greg would eventually fall asleep, his breathing becoming a little less haggard and jagged and Nick would tuck his lover into bed, planting a kiss on Greg's nose.
Then he pulls the pamphlets out from under the sheets on his makeshift bed and reads them in the light seeping in through the windows, excess from the strip. His "Leukemia and Loved Ones" pamphlets that Greg's doctor gave Nick just a week ago, when they had some scary times with Greg.
For a while, Nick thought he might lose Greg.
The CSIs come visit more often. And Catherine or Sara - - and even sometimes both - - leave in tears. They can't bear to see Greg in the condition he is in. Warrick gets angry and busted a hole in the wall outside Greg's room one time. He yells sometimes and Nick has to calm him down. Grissom tries to break it down to a science, because he can deal with science not real life but he sympathizes for Nick and gets frustrated with Warrick and provides a shoulder for Catherine and arms for Sara.
But that is when Greg is sleeping. Because when Greg is awake long enough to realize who everyone is and where he is, people put on façade and pretend to be happy and strong and insist to Greg that everything will be better soon, but like everything else, it takes time. He believes them, somewhere between the drugged haze settling over his brain and wanting to believe them, Greg listens and believes and falls asleep grinning.
Everyone who visits provides an outlet for Nick - - a shoulder to cry on, an ear to talk off, a soothing to voice to reassure him that everything with be okay and a comforting hand on his back. Greg can't even lift his hand up to touch Nick's face anymore, to trace along his facial features like he used to do in the darkness of their bedroom late at night, when everything was well.
Catherine stops by the most. She always brings Nick a few things to eat, a couple of magazines to hold him over and some gossip from around the lab. Nick would explain to Catherine all of the things that Greg's doctor had told him and she would ask how the therapy was going. He said it was okay and he never directly talked about Greg, but was able to express that watching someone he loved waste away to a nothingness was the hardest thing he has ever done. The shrink understands and bills Nick once a month.
Nick works when Greg is drugged up and sleeping. He would busy himself with mindless tasks and often he is sitting in the AV lab with Archie, just watching surveillance tape after surveillance tape or talking to Bobby Dawson about how his husband and baby girl are doing. But Bobby hates talking about how happy his family is when Nick's is in so much turmoil. Nick says he doesn't mind but Bobby can see the pain in his eyes.
Grissom would send Nick to see the department shrink when he would start getting teary eyed mid way through shift.
Nick returns to the hospital just in time to wake Greg from a nightmare and hold up a bucket so Greg could throw up what little he had eaten since the last time he woke. He has to hold up Greg's frail body as he leans over one side of his bed, checking to make sure the tubes in Greg's nose don't come loose or he doesn't pull out his IV.
Always in time to hear Greg explain a happier time that he has come to only remember in dreams. Remember when he could have rough, hot, sweaty sex with Nick and shake their entire bed and when Greg could go running with Nick in the morning. When Greg could go dancing with Nick at the club and when he could go to work and gossip with Jackie while his boyfriend was out solving crimes and being a hero, which is the sexiest thing about Nick for Greg.
Always in time to wipe away the tears from Greg's eyes because he is in so much pain and the medications aren't helping and from the nightmares of dying and all that Nick can't think about is something that his older brother used to tell him, about how people dream of their death in their sleep and die before they wake up in the morning. That the death dreams are just a sixth sense and Nick is worried that Greg may be predicting his own death.
The doctor comes to talk to Greg but he is always sleeping. They have to postpone Greg's last treatment because Greg isn't recovering fast enough and performing the last treatment could do worse that good. He offers to discharge Greg so Nick can make him comfortable at home, but Greg isn't even strong enough to pull away the covers, so Nick tells the doctor he wants to stay.
But when Greg's condition doesn't start improving, his doctors became concerned.
Nick is sitting in Greg's room one night, holding his lover's hand while he sleeps, he notices that Greg's heartbeat is slowing and he feels Greg's hand going limp.
"I need help!" Nick yells desperately and he is ushered out of Greg's room when the medical personnel come rushing in. He is in tears and Nick can't even think about what to do. He can't function, can't even think about pulling out his phone and calling someone. The only thing Nick can do is drop to the floor and drop his head into his hands as Greg is rushed from his room.