Chapter 59
Migraine
By the middle of the shift, the migraine had begun to get steadily worse for Gil, and he was having a hard time concentrating on any of his work whatsoever. Sitting in his office with the lights at their dimmest seemed to help but it wasn't really the best situation for reading small fonts on white paper.
The harsh bright lights of the hallways were unwelcome, and he decided to avoid them as much as he could, whenever he would step into the hall, he'd slide on his sunglasses, not caring how ridiculous it looked he happened to be wearing them inside the building at nighttime.
Catherine came to see him at his office, having noticed his lack of presence anywhere else in the building where he seemed to be needed. She found him leaning over his desk holding a piece of paper practically an inch or two away from his face trying to read the text.
"Hey, you wanted to see me?" she asked, she held up her phone which indicated she'd gotten the voice mail he'd sent her earlier that night when she'd been out on the field.
"Yes," Gil put the paper down in front of her, "what does that say?"
Catherine raised an eyebrow and looked at the piece of paper, a certain word was smudged, and the text was tiny, "Uhm, I think it's 'psychotic'," she shrugged, "what's up?" she asked.
"This evening when Sara walked in. Don't think I didn't know what you were thinking," he tapped the cap of the pen he was holding on the bottom of his teeth absently, "I just want you to know you're wrong."
"I never said a word," Catherine replied calmly.
"No, but you were thinking it. Come on, Cath. If it had been anyone else I might have thought the same thing. Woman comes in with a bruise on her face – practically close to being a black eye – and the guy she's dating has marks on his neck…physical abuse, right?" he asked.
"No…" Catherine responded, "what I did think is that you guys probably got very…physical after your shift?" she mused. "C'mon, Grissom, how long have I known you?" she pointed out. "I know you better than anyone. You're not capable of that."
"Sometimes I wonder…" Gil trailed off, then shook his head, "could you just please let the others know that Sara did in fact, trip over a chair."
"So that part was true?" Catherine asked.
"I wasn't even there when it happened," he confessed, "when I got there, the chair was overturned."
"Okay, I'll let them know…" Catherine shrugged, "so…apart from her tripping over chairs, everything between you and Sara is going well?"
"Why so interested?" Gil asked as he picked up the piece of paper he'd been trying to read.
Catherine paused, "I don't know. Maybe lack of a love life of my own."
"I take it your secret admirer hasn't made any other advances then?" Gil asked.
She dropped herself into the chair opposite his desk, "why can't you just tell me who he is?" she asked with a groan.
Gil raised his eyes from his paper to hers, "he told me he'd tell you when he was ready. I trust he will. In the meantime, they say patience is a virtue."
"For you it is, maybe. For me it bugs the hell out of me," Catherine scratched the tip of her nose absently.
Gil heard her words and felt the irony of the fact he'd said patience is a virtue when he was becoming impatient as of late himself. The reason behind Sara's drinking, for example was leaving him very impatient, he was desperate to know what was going on behind those dark intense eyes of hers.
"You okay? You look paler than usual today."
"I'm fine, its like I said earlier, I haven't slept well…" he said distractedly, trying to get through with reading the paper, having a hard time concentrating on both the conversation and his work. Admittedly, he was having a hard time concentrating, period.
"Migraine?"
Gil raised his eyes to her, "how do you do that?" he asked.
"How do I do what?" Catherine asked innocently.
"Know things…?" he frowned.
"When you get a migraine you get this expression that's stuck between constipated and tearful," Catherine smirked, but then gave him a sympathetic expression, "you should go home. You could do more harm to your work than good."
"With the mound of stuff I have to do at my desk today I don't think I can afford to even take a half day off…" he confessed, "ever since I started dating Sara…I've found it even harder to keep up with paperwork because I don't max out on overtime to get it done anymore…"
Catherine stood slowly, "Listen, if I have time at the end of the day, I'll come and give you a hand," she offered, "but only if you tell me who my secret admirer is."
"I'm sworn to secrecy," Gil pretended to zip his lips and throw away the key.
"Your loss," Catherine responded, and left the office silently.
Gil sighed to himself watching her go, he sat for twenty-five more minutes before a knock at his office door disturbed him. He raised his eyes to see Greg enter.
"Cath said I should come and help…" Greg said with an unsure tone in his voice.
"What'd you do to tick her off?" Gil asked. He'd paired Catherine up with Greg on a casino robbery case and the only reason he could think of her sending Greg to help him was that Greg had caused some trouble and this was his punishment.
"I screwed up a piece of evidence – which I managed to fix but…yeah, I made her mad so…"
"Fine…" Gil picked up a pile of folders, "read through these inventory lists, take note of anything we're in short supply of," he noted, "and then fill out the order forms…and then you can leave them for me to sign, think you can handle that?"
"Yes," Greg said, noting the agitation in Gil's voice, "are you pissed off or something?"
"Why would you think that?" Gil asked, he moved to his file cabinet to put away three new reports.
"I have no idea…fight with Sara maybe?"
"That's none of your concern."
"Hey, when my friend comes to work with a black eye, it's my concern," Greg responded in quite a brash way that made Gil spin around. It wasn't often that Greg stood up for himself, mostly because he was so eager to please, and so intent on keeping his job, but Gil found it rather valiant that Greg would stand up for Sara – even when it was so blatantly obvious that Catherine had not told Greg the whole story.
"For your information," Gil began, he walked over and put his hands down on the desk, leering down at the young man who was now sitting in the other seat with a folder in his lap, "Sara doesn't have a black eye, she has a bruise on her cheekbone, not the same thing. Me and Sara didn't have a fight – either argument or physical. And I don't abuse women. I have never raised my hand to any woman in anger, let alone the woman I love."
Greg's dark eyes widened, he looked thoroughly panicked as if he thought Gil might swing at him. "Okay…I'm sorry."
"Your concern over Sara's well being is appreciated but not necessary."
"You love her?" Greg asked quietly.
Gil put his hand to his forehead, the throbbing was growing more persistent now, and raising his voice at Greg had only seemed to make it worse, "Greg, now is not the time to have this conversation…"
"But you said—"
"But it's irrelevant. It's nothing to do with anything relating to our job at the moment, and I have a ton of work to do right now, so if you please…" Gil gestured to the work in front of Greg.
Greg gave a nervous laugh and then fell silent and began to work at the inventory paperwork he'd been given.
Gil went back to the file cabinet to retrieve another file. He wished that he were out on the field right now getting fresh air. He'd missed so much field work because of paperwork lately that he was beginning to feel sickened every time he stepped into his office, knowing for at least seventy percent of the day he'd find himself confined to the desk.
If I wasn't dating Sara, I wouldn't have so much of this right now, he thought dully. But if I wasn't dating Sara, I'd be just as miserable and lonely as I was before. No win situation, either way I lose.
He paused, thinking about earlier again. It kept coming back to haunt him, it bothered him, not knowing. Something was hurting her, something big enough to go to the extremes of alcohol abuse and he couldn't fathom it out.
A darkness swept over Gil's eyes as if everything in the room faded to black for just an instant. He lost his balance and gripped onto the file cabinet for support. He let out a little gasp of surprise. The pain sliced through his head like a knife, and he sucked in a breath. Somewhere in the back of his senses, he heard Greg ask if he was okay, but he couldn't somehow make himself respond.
"Grissom…what's up…you okay?"
Gil put both hands to his head, his thoughts swirled out of control, his body couldn't keep its balance, he felt himself fall to the side and hit the wall, some of the shelves came down with him and he heard the smash of several jars hitting the floor.
"Hey! I got you…" he heard Greg say, his voice seemed muffled and distant.
"I'm fine…I have to get this work done…" Gil said, the words even sounded absurd to himself even though the pain was making it so bad that he could barely understand what was going on around him anymore.
Blackness was sweeping over his vision, and even the slightest light was blinding him. He gripped his head, gritting his teeth through the pain, he felt Greg guide him to his chair, he sat there trying to gain his thoughts. Nothing was making sense.
"Cath!" he heard Greg crying somewhere outside of the office, the sound of yelling only seemed to add to the intensity of the pain. His ears and eyes felt hypersensitive.
"Calm down…" he heard Catherine saying to Greg, he felt Catherine's cool hands on his flushed face. "Greg, go get a cup of cold water…"
"What's cold water going to do? He's going to pass out or something!" Greg admonished.
"Just do it," Catherine said, she sounded incredibly calm, as if she dealt with this every single day.
Gil opened his eyes, everything was bright and fuzzy, Catherine's image ever so slightly distorted by the light.
"Where's your medication?" Catherine held his face up so he would look at her.
"Somewhere…in my jacket pocket…" he managed with a groan, he put his head in his hands.
Greg returned with the water, Catherine slammed the door shut quickly once he was inside, "don't speak to anyone about this, okay?" she asked. "It's just a migraine – probably from stress," she took the cup of water from him, located the bottle of pills from Gil's jacket pocket and took two out.
Gil accepted the pills and the water gratefully, "I'm fine," he tried to assure, although his vision was still incredibly bad, and the blackness kept passing over his eyes. Wouldn't be long before the pills set in and the pain began to slowly decrease.
"Yeah, fine is why you broke half your shelves," Catherine responded, "you need time off…"
"No…I'm fine, I just…need a minute or two…"
"No, you don't, you need to go home and de-stress…" Catherine said firmly.
Greg stood hovering near the doorway, his lanky frame casting odd shadows, "should I, uhm…go?"
"Yes," Catherine replied.
In unison with Catherine Gil answered, "No."
"Do you have any regards for your health at all?" Catherine asked of Gil sternly.
"Not really."
"You're no good to the team like this."
"Look…the shift ends in three hours…" Gil tied to focus on his watch, he was having trouble so he had to guess.
"Three hours and ten minutes," Greg corrected.
"I think I can last until the end of the shift," Gil assured.
"Yeah…but what then? You can't drive like this…you're squinting, can you even see right?"
"By the time the pills have worked their magic charm, yeah," Gil shrugged, "stop worrying. I'll be fine."
"God forbid anyone should actually worry or care," Catherine folded her arms.
Greg spoke up, "Is he always this…uh…"
"Pigheaded? Yeah," Catherine responded, "Grissom. Fine, if you want to stay and play office with a migraine and bad vision, then be my guest, but be warned, you could end up doing your health more harm than good."
Gil sighed, "you know, right now, I don't care, I have what looks like two weeks worth of paperwork accumulated over three days, six unsolved cases – two of which are murders. I have the whole teams quarterly evaluations to take care of, I haven't slept more than an hour, and the coffee in here tastes like caffeinated cats urine mixed with tar,so forgive me if I just couldn't really give a shit about a migraine which will eventually pass."
Catherine blinked, surprised by his tone.
Greg looked away and muttered, "ouch," under his breath at the way Gil had just spoke to his colleague and long time friend.
"Greg, out," Catherine glanced towards him, "me and Grissom are going to have words."
"My pleasure," Greg responded sheepishly, and all too quickly sailed out of the door closing it behind him.
"What the hell is your problem?" Catherine demanded the second Greg had left, she sat on the edge of the desk folding her arms.
Gil closed his eyes, trying to block out the light that was making his head burn inside, "my problem is…I don't know what my problem is…" he sighed to himself, "Cath, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to snap. I'm under stress, I'm swamped here, I can't get out in the field to do my job…this paperwork never seems to go away…"
"Don't bullshit me, this isn't about the job. I've seen you stressed about the job, this is different…I can't pinpoint why, but I know it."
"Work is part of it," Gil shrugged, he rubbed his forehead, "Cath, believe me, if I could explain what the other part was, I would, but…right now, I don't even know…"
His mind soared back to thoughts of Sara of what was now yesterday morning. Her mood had shifted so quickly before he'd had a chance to try and establish what the problem was. If there was a problem at all. He wanted to ask himself if Sara was being honest that there was nothing wrong, and he was just overreacting to something that wasn't even an issue. If there wasn't a problem, why was she drinking…alone? Getting so drunk that she could leave her apartment looking like the Tazmanian devil from the Warner Brothers cartoons had just spun in and out like a mini tornado.
Catherine broke his chain of thoughts, "what don't you know?"
"That's just it," Gil opened his eyes to look up at her, finally his vision beginning to slightly adjust to the light, so that he could see the blur of Catherine's face, "I just don't know…"
Catherine stood up, she smoothed down the jacket of her pants suit, "Grissom…I don't even know what you're talking about anymore, you're not making much sense, and I don't know if this will even help…but let me remind you of some words of wisdom that you passed onto me once many years ago…" she put her hand on his shoulder lightly, "sometimes not knowing is what gets you through the day."
Gil tried to tell himself that for the remainder of the shift, but it wasn't consolation enough.
Another blah chapter, I'm getting to the good stuff eventually (maybe after I've actually slept would be good).
jtbwriter, the last chapter wasn't meant to be confusing and the sex isn't anything to do with the problem. She is fine with the love making, it isn't the issue, lol. It might look confusing, because, lets face, it I've had insomnia for so long and passed out three times now, my writing might be a little whacked right now, but I'm addicted to writing this while the ideas are fresh in my head so I can't seem to stop it, lol.
Reviewers: Thanks for reviewing, I'll name you all in 60 ;)