A/N: Sorry I haven't posted in a while -- I'm having really horrible writers block (and insomnia). My goal for Changes is to finish it up in 5 chapters -- I'm also working on finishing Abby and Aureus. Aureus is giving me a really hard time, so if yah'll have any ideas for the plot let me know (please). Happy reading, Jac.
When Nick hadn't called me last night, I began to worry about Sara. I never wanted to like Sara; if you asked me three years ago, I would have never thought Sara would have become my friend. She was hired to investigate Holly's murder . . . something I will always blame myself for. Sara stayed a little longer to investigate whether or not I was still a gambling addict. I never thought that one day I would turn around and try to figure out if Sara was an alcoholic.
Catherine had noticed that my head wasn't in the game tonight. She looked annoyed, but I wanted to think that on some level she might understand. Catherine never got herself involved with the younger CSIs. She had a daughter; Catherine was at a different point in her life. If Catherine had an emotional bond with anyone, it was Nick. As of a few months ago, Catherine and I had a whole different kind of bond . . . well, it was a whole new kind of sexual tension that I had never encountered before.
I had been counting the seconds until the shift was over. I had told Catherine that I had some things that I needed to take care of right after shift. I was pretty sure that Catherine knew what I wanted to go take care of. Night shift had been uncharacteristically close to each other. Separating the team wasn't going to make that go away.
It was three in the morning, but I found myself standing at the door of an apartment that I never imagined I would ever willingly go to. I didn't know what to do next; I stood outside Sara's door for a few minutes trying to calculate the next move. I finally knocked; I was relived to see that Nick answered the door.
"She okay?" I asked as I entered the apartment.
"Sara and Greg are okay," Nick said as he gestured to where Greg was sleeping on the pull-out couch, "Sara's in her bedroom."
"What's next?" I asked as Nick and I retreated to the small kitchen area off the living room.
"I don't know . . . when my uncle was a recovering alcoholic, he had seizures and stuff a few days after he was admitted to the hospital. I thought I might see if I can get a few days off to watch Greg and Sara," Nick replied.
"You think they drank that much?" I asked stunned that their alcoholism might be so much worse than we ever considered.
"Greg finished off a twelve pack in the span of four hours," Nick commented. I had a hard time picturing Greg drinking; it might be that I always thought of him as a goofy little brother. It was hard to picture him as an alcoholic.
"Is he okay?" I asked.
"Sara made him throw it up. She said that he's done that a few times before . . . never bad enough to justify him going to the hospital to have his stomach pumped," Nick commented. I didn't understand how we did notice this.
"So how do we help them?" I asked after drawing in a large breath.
"Sara wants to do something to help Greg . . . man, she doesn't give a damn about what happens to her anymore. She just wants to save Greg," Nick replied. He looked agitated; Nick took this kind of stuff personally. He always suffered with the victims.
"So something like AA? Do they need something more than that?" I asked.
"I don't know . . . do you think Catherine could help? She might know what to do," Nick replied.
"Someone should say something to Grissom," I replied, but I had no intention of being the one to call him on his bad behavior.
"I don't know . . . have you heard what's going on?" Nick asked. I must have looked at him blankly because he began to speak immediately. "Acoustic neuroma."
"Cancer?" I asked. It felt like someone had punched me in the chest; I wasn't expecting that.
"Benign, but I guess those tumors transform into cancer," Nick clarified. I didn't even know what else to ask; I had heard Catherine ask Grissom about his hearing before. I knew the stories about his mother and her disability. Grissom would never approve of me thinking it was a disability; his mother had the ability to communicate in a way I don't think I ever could.
"When Eckley finds out . . . he's gone, isn't he?" I asked. Well, it wasn't really a question. It was more of a statement of the obvious. We were required to have all our senses to be in this line of work. It was Grissom that had pounded that in me; every crime scene was a sensory overload. Sometimes the clues would come in the form of scents . . . other times there was something to be looked at.
"Eckley is going to love being the one to fire Grissom," Nick commented. I could almost picture the devilish little man getting off on firing someone that he was always jealous of. I could picture Eckley sitting at his desk smiling as he simply stated Gil, buddy, things just aren't working out. It gave me chills. Eckley was finally getting what he wanted . . . the chance to be the 'most talented' person in the lab. True be told, I had more faith in Greg than I ever would in Eckley.
"I know. Doesn't it piss you off that someone like Eckley is going to get everything he wants?" I asked.
"He tried for so long to have Grissom's life . . . now, I think he's going to," Nick lamented. Eckley was going to have the lab. Eckley had pushed Sophia and Catherine to be a willing participant in a romantic relationship for so long; I was glad that both refused. I wondered how long it would be until he would be after Sara. Eckley did want everything that Grissom could have; I was sure sooner or later he would try to also have Sara. It wasn't fair that a control freak could come in and seemingly alter all the forces that kept our lab in line.
"What about cochlear implants? My baby cousin had one," I said.
"Grissom doesn't realize that we all know about his hearing. I don't know if he would want us there . . . I don't know if he would want us," Nick replied.
"I don't think Grissom knows what he wants anymore . . . I think he just wants it to be yesterday," I replied. Some days, I would give anything to erase the last month. Some days, I would give up anything to not have to work for Catherine. It gave our outside the office relationship a whole new complexity that I was having a hard time working through.
"What's next?" Nick asked.
"Man, I already asked you that question. You didn't have the answer . . . don't expect me to," I said trying to laugh, but the laughter wouldn't come.
"Let's get Sara and Greg better. The only person who has ever gotten through to Grissom is Catherine," Nick replied.
"I'll call Cat and see what she thinks we can do to keep this an internal matter," I replied.
"You called her 'Cat' . . . you dog," Nick replied smiling. Catherine would skin anyone that called her by that nickname. I had taken to calling her than in private just so she would remember that outside the time clock, she was not my boss . . . I wanted her to remember that this thing we had was a partnership.
"Thanks, buddy. Don't you dare say anything to her . . . she'll kick your ass and then mine," I replied.
"At least someone's like isn't helter-skelter," Nick commented.
"Only the night shift is helter-skelter," I replied. I knew how lucky I was. My life was just starting to head in the right direction. It was hard to be happy when I knew that my friend's lives and my mentor's life were falling to pieces.
My grandmother once said that there wasn't a glue that could fix broken people. This is the first time that I really began to believe that.