Disclaimer: I don't own anything or anyone, although I'm thinking of opening a "CSIs-R-Us store, where we can rent them out hourly, think anyone would be game?
Author's Notes: Sorry it took so long to get this out, if you had any idea at all how my week at work has been, you'd understand the delay...I had to readjust my time card this morning when I left, and I think the total hours from last Sunday to this morning was 108.75. I haven't had time to bathe, much less type. :-) But I am thoroughly enjoying my time off, if all goes according to plan, I won't step foot in that building until 7 AM Tuesday morning. And, unless something comes up, I am on vacation the week after next. I really hope I get to take it, my last two got cancelled because of work related emergencies. Let's face it, they didn't even give me my full six weeks off after my daughter was born, at 3 weeks they were calling to ask if I'd come back, at 4 they were begging, at 4 and a half they were demanding.
Anyway, I finally have a end in sight for this story, so there's going to be approximately 4 more chapters...if you want them, hit the reply button. (Yes, I'm in a threatening mood today).
I owe this chapter to Emmithar, who fixed my numerous mistakes and encouraged me to continue and finish this story, and has kept me sane all week...well, as sane as I can be. You're the best, girl!
Jenny
Nine:
Nick sat in the spacious conference room, which had been reserved for the building-wide meeting over job performance, and stared numbly at the wall opposite him.
He couldn't deny that things had been tense, none of the shift had really spoken since Grissom had their team meeting a few days back. Catherine and Warrick had been acting strange, only talking amongst each other, sometimes sharing an intense, silent conversation with Grissom through their eyes. Greg hadn't returned to work yet, he had been perched by Sara's bed, unwilling to leave, despite the doctor's telling him that she was going to probably be unconscious for awhile.
To make matters worse, he had stopped by to visit Jessica earlier that day, and she had refused to see him. He knew his parents had contacted her, Karen had told him when she called to see if he made it home safely. He didn't know the details of what had happened, although he had a sinking suspicion it was the reason she was refusing his visit.
He knew the events that had been taking place around him was affecting him, he could see it in his work, in his appearance, in the simple fact that he no longer wanted to get out of bed in the morning, just because he was afraid of what the new day would bring.
He could see the same dread on the faces of Catherine, Warrick, Grissom, and Greg. This meeting was the last thing they needed. He looked down at his watch, deciding that after this meeting was over, he was going to try and visit Jessica again...this time, he wouldn't take no for an answer, they'd have to drag him out of there kicking and screaming.
He looked up as some of the day shift CSIs walked in together, laughing and talking over their steaming cups of coffee. The girl, Nick thought her name was Stacey, but he wasn't sure, sat down beside him, completely ignoring his presence. Chris and Mark, the two males on the day shift, sat down in the empty chairs beside her, laughing over some case they had solved the day before. He knew Brittany, the last dayshift CSI, wouldn't be too far behind. He had seen her around enough to know that she didn't hang out much with the other three, and she was a lot quieter than the others from her shift.
Nick had always watched her from a distance, her long brown hair swishing when she walked, her head almost always bent over a paperback book or a case folder. It was as if she wanted to blend in with the walls, hide herself away from her coworkers. While it helped to make others walk past her as if she wasn't there, it always got Nick's attention when he spotted her. So badly, he wanted to go up and talk to her, but he was almost scared she'd turn him away.
Sure enough, a few minutes later, Brittany sat down at the other side of the table, across from Nick, her brown hair falling slightly into her face as she started to thumb through her Stephen King novel. He was about to say hello to her, when Catherine and Warrick walked in, their hands not linked for the first time all week.
They sat down beside Nick, Catherine muttering a soft hello, her face deathly pale. She had one hand resting on her stomach, the other fidgeting nervously with the pen and tablet she had brought with her, standard policy for any departmental meeting, and she kept shooting nervous glances in Warrick's direction.
"You okay?" Nick asked softly, forgetting about his foul mood as concern for his friend entered his soft heart. "You don't look so good, maybe you should see if Grissom would excuse you from the meeting."
Catherine slowly shook her head, taking a deep breath before speaking, "It's okay, Nicky, I just feel a little queasy, that's all. It was a long shift, you know..."
"Tell me about it." Warrick groaned, the tiredness evident in his features. "We need Greg and Sara back."
Chris, the redhead flirt from day shift, turned in their direction, "All three of you look beat. How will you handle it when you're down a CSI or two?"
"What makes you think one of ours will be out?" Catherine snapped, the hand that was fidgeting with the tablet suddenly clenched defensively in a fist, "Didn't you and Blondie here--" she pointed a thumb in Stacey's direction, "Leave evidence at a crime scene and compromise the entire case just last week? Or how about forgetting to check the unmade bed for semen samples in a rape case, Mark? Oh, that's right, you were too busy talking on the phone with your girlfriend."
"At least I'm not shacking up with a coworker. You will be lucky if your whole team isn't fired." Stacey shot back arrogantly, "And no one on our shift is stupid enough to dart out in front of a car." She snorted, "By the way, how is Sara?"
Greg, who had been sitting quietly on the other side of the room, slammed his fist on the table, causing Brittany, who had yet to look up, to jump back and let out a small shriek, "You leave Sara out of this!" Greg said loudly, "If you weren't there, you don't know what happened. If you don't know what happened, you shouldn't open your mouth and look like an idiot."
"Oh, look, the little baby of grave is getting mad." Stacey taunted, rolling her eyes at Chris and Mark, "Yell and scream, go ahead, I dare you. That will only get you thrown back in the lab where you belong, you can't play with the big kids, sweetheart."
"Just shut up." Warrick muttered, waving his hand in Stacey's direction, "If all we are going to do is fight, this is a waste of time."
The room lapsed into an uncomfortable silence, until a few moments later, the two CSIs working swing, walked quietly into the room, filling two more chairs.
By the time the supervisors and sheriff walked into the room a few moments later, the air was thick with anger and tension, and silent glares were being thrown across the room by nearly every occupant.
Ecklie cleared his throat and nodded looked at Grissom and Parker, the new swing shift supervisor, who both nodded in return.
"We've asked you all here this morning to discuss the performance reviews we have conducted with each one of you. We have reported our findings to the lab directors and to the sheriff, and we regret to inform you that we will be losing several members of our staff here at CSI." Ecklie began, opening his folder and skimming the contents of the page.
"As you all know, we have taken each employee and carefully reviewed all CSI's on shift, as well as each teams effectiveness and the lab as a whole. Overall, you should all be very proud. Each and every one of you are very intelligent, ambitious individuals who are an important asset to this lab. It was very hard for us to agree on which of you will be terminated. We carefully reviewed your cold cases, your solve rate, complaints filed against you, your court performance, attendance, availability and ability to go above and beyond what is expected of you, incident rates, recurrent training, education, experience, and yearly evaluations."
Ecklie nodded to Grissom, who rubbed his forehead with one hand, obviously tired and upset with the situation, then added to Ecklie's opening, "We want to stress that we would keep all of you if we could, we have a strong lab and exceptional employees, and we value each and every one of you, however, each shift will be losing one team member, and the remaining employees will probably be moved around to accommodate the decreased number of available employees. Parker?"
Parker stood, folder in hand, "We want to make this as quick and painless as possible. I work with two exceptional employees, Valerie and Alex, and I'm sorry to say that Val will no longer be with us. Val, I will need to see you in my office shortly, alright? It is nothing personal-"
"I know." Valerie interrupted, tears shining in her eyes, "I've made some mistakes, I'm still a rookie, Alex has been here for years, I know. I'll meet you in your office."
Valerie grabbed her purse, stopping only briefly to give Alex a hug as she fled the room, the door slamming shut behind her.
Grissom looked down at the table, uncomfortable. He didn't want to do this in front of everyone, it was unfair to the person being laid off, it was unfair to the other employees who had to watch. It was moments like these that he really wanted to knock Ecklie's head off of his shoulders. He was relieved that he was last, hopefully Ecklie and his CSI's, as well as Parker and his, would leave and they could do this in private, the way he had wanted to all along.
"I have an amazing team. Stacey, Chris, Mark, Brittany...you four have been nothing but brilliant since the days you started working here. You all know what you are doing, you work well as a team, you are always willing to help each other out, but we will have to let one of you go. Stacey, please meet me in my office once we are finished here."
Stacey shot to her feet, her voice tight with anger, "You son of a bitch! If anyone should be tossed to the curb, it should be Brittany. Chris, Mark, and I work perfectly together, I can't believe you'd chose them over me. I've been here longer than all of them, I can't believe you'd just throw me out!"
"We don't have time for the dramatics, Stacey. Please wait for me in my office." Ecklie said, his voice hard with barely contained anger, "Now."
Stacey stormed out as well, the door slamming shut behind her. All attention turned toward Grissom, who was tapping his thumbs gently against the table, the nervousness evident on his usually calm face.
Before he could begin to speak, however, Catherine shot up from the table, exiting the room without a word, the door loudly closing behind her. Grissom watched as Warrick nervously eyed the door, and after a few seconds, he said quietly, "Warrick, would you mind going to check on Catherine?"
"How unprofessional." Ecklie muttered quietly, which earned him a hard stare from Greg, Nick, and Grissom.
It was Greg, surprisingly, who spoke. Normally Ecklie frighted him, but lately he had been to on edge to keep his comments to himself. Later, he wanted to kick his own butt for saying whatever happened to come out, and he was sure this time would be no exception, as he said cooly, "Catherine's been feeling under the weather lately. If you thought that was unprofessional, I suppose you would rather her get vomit on the table? The floor? How unprofessional would you say that would be? Oh, I forgot, your team is perfect, you can't relate to us humans."
"Greg, that's enough." Grissom said after a few seconds of hesitation, clearly wanting to see the young CSI put Ecklie in his place, but afraid of the consequences, "I can continue without them, for now."
He turned to Ecklie, "This morning I realized that it would not be fair to my team to let one CSI go before I was able to complete all evaluations. My team is short handed already, since Greg is out on medical leave, and Sara's in the hospital. Until I am able to talk with Sara and conduct an evaluation on her myself, I can not pull anyone off my team."
He looked from Greg to Nick, trying to communicate silently with them that he wasn't planning on losing anyone off of his team, but instead he was met with an icy glare from Nick, and a fiery one from Greg, who jumped to his feet.
"I can't believe you, of all people..." Greg fumed, pointing a finger at Grissom, "That just goes to show you who he is going to eliminate, we all know it's going to be Sara. We have all known from the moment you told us about this crap. Hasn't she been through enough? Haven't you put her through enough? Of all people, why would you do this to Sara? You know how much she loves her job--"
Grissom held up his hand, starting to grow angry, "Hold on a second, Greg, I never said I was going to terminate Sara."
"You didn't have to, it's obvious." Greg spat out, shaking his head angrily, his body starting to tremble, "She's in ICU, fighting for her life, and you are going behind her back to get rid of her without her even being aware of the situation. You are a sick man, Grissom, a sick man."
He stormed out of the room, leaving the room silent, anger brewing in both Grissom and Ecklie's eyes, a hurt and pained look in Nick's, and shock and fear in everyone else's.
After a few moments, Ecklie turned to Grissom, "You need to get your shift under control, before you lose every last one of them."
Greg slipped into Sara's hospital room, taking her hand gently into his own hand, angry tears that had been threatening him since he left CSI now falling helplessly down his cheeks.
"Sara, sweetie, please wake up. You've got to come back to me. I'm going crazy without you...I think I may have just said the wrong things at the wrong time, I probably am about to lose my job. It's not the same without you, please just open your eyes."
Her pale body remained still, and Greg started to sob, bringing her hand to his face as he slowly started to crumble, the stress and pain of the last week flooding his body, causing a tidal wave of emotion.
He had been so scared when she had coded a few days prior, things had been touch and go from that point on. She was now hooked up to several machines, and had yet to regain consciousness. She wasn't breathing on her own, although the doctors were optimistic she would start too soon. They removed the tube every so often, but she was still struggling to breathe on her own, so they left her hooked up while she slowly grew stronger.
He was starting to think she'd never wake up. He had spent days by her side, willing, praying, begging her to wake up, yet he had gotten no response. He tried to remain positive, but as the days passed, so did his hope that he'd get the woman he loved back.
The doctors hadn't told him, but Greg knew that the longer she remained unconscious and unresponsive, the slimmer the chances of a complete, problem-free recovery were, if she even woke up at all.
He laid his head against her bed, still cradling her hand in his own as he cried himself into a light sleep, exhausted by the emotional day, the lack of rest and nutrition he had forced on himself by sitting with Sara day in and day out.
Nearly an hour later, he was shocked to find her other hand resting gently in his hair.
TBC
