The blonde supervisor is pacing restlessly the hall of the hospital's waiting lounge. Although they haven't arrived more than 15 minutes ago, for her it feels like hours.
When arriving, the medics immediately rushed Nick into a vacant emergency room that was bathing in fluorescent light and typical smell of fertilizer. Catherine and Grissom were asked to stay outside and wait. Easier to say than do that, Catherine frowned and nerviously started to walk up and down. Leaning on the white wall, Grissom was watching her for some minutes, but got tired of her walking-marathon soon, he rather averted his gaze to the floor. Another time he would have given her a sneery remark, but now he just kept still. It wasn't the time of silly jokes.
Catherine sighs, turning around about the hundredth time.
Grissom looks up at her. "He'll be okay," he tries to reassure her.
She bites her lip and glances at him. There is some certainity in his soothing voice that makes her believe him. She manages a slight, thankful smile. He is always able to help her through the hard situations with his comforting words.
"Yeah, I know." Catherine responds, holding his gaze.
Putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder, the male supervisor gives her a supporting smile.
"Nick is one of us. He'll make it."
Returning his smile, she nods agreeing. He must.
-----------------------------------------
The black Tahoe speeds through the streets of Vegas. Dead silence falls over its passengers - none of them is in the mood for speaking.
Stopping the car at the traffic lights, Warrick glances over at Sara, who's sitting in the passenger's seat She is staring out of the window, her thoughts are seemingly far away. Looking into the rearview-mirror then, Warrick checks out the young Lab technician in the backseat. Greg yawns and rubs his eyes, which makes the afro guy smile slightly.
The lights change to green and the Tahoe drives along. Some time later Warrick stops at Greg's block to drop the guy, then is heading toward Sara's flat.
The afro CSI notices his co-worker's distraction, but considers he'd better let her alone with her thoughts. Knowing Sara, he wouldn't be able to get her talk now.
Sara glances over the streetlights blankly - her mind wandering back to the point where they had been interrupted about half hour ago. Nick. She can't supress those newly awaken emotions about him, no matter how much she would like to.
The image of Nick's horrified expression in that plexiglass coffin flashes through her mind, making her heart sink with sorrow. She instinctively clings onto the seatbelt, her knuckles white of the desperate strength. She can't get that view out of her mind - it burnt deep inside her brain, and the imprint will never fade.
All the suffer he had to endure there, she doesn't dare to imagine any piece of that horror.
Having these thoughts on mind, Sara's breath stops for a moment, and she shivers and gasps with terror in her eyes. She still hasn't recovered from shock - also wonders if she ever would.
"Are you okay?" Warrick's worried voice breaks her thoughts.
Sara looks over at the face searching hers and takes a deep breath. "Yeah..." she nods tentatively, her voice is upset and terrified.
He doesn't believe her, his narrowing eyes can tell that, but he surmises that he'd rather not force her to talk about things she doesn't want to share voluntarily with him.
Their friends kidnapping and torment have affected her deeply, Warrick states. Maybe more than everyone else, he surmises. Nick and Sara worked a lot together during the years, and became good friends, so this hell must have upset her very much.
Not officially and only for Nick's case though, the split team united again, forming a rounded whole – just as the natural way of things is. Everyone knows that the effeciency of the Vegas CSI team is hiding in the peculiar and unique way of teamwork and cooperation between the members.
Hopefully that dumbass Ecklie has also realized that after all that happened, Warrick grumbles in thoughts, and will fulfill Grissom's „request" about wanting his TEAM back. There's some light of hope at the end of the dark tunnel…
Sara turns her look back to the window, gazing the houses along the streets again. Confusion overwhelmes her. The other times so self-confident CSI has lost her strength. All that happened in the past 24 hours has changed her world.
Suddenly she has found herself in a completely new situation, which she doesn't know how to handle yet. Everything turned up-side-down in that moment when the mere possibility of caring about him more than she should hit her.
He's a friend and also my coworker, she reminds herself. That's all. Nothing more. And that should remain so as well.
It's enough to think of that crush about Grissom… That thing hadn't ended good either, that must have been a sign to restain of relationships at work.
Anyway, she frowns, why do I think that he would care about me the same way? I'm not his type. And we have hardly talked or met either since Ecklie split the team. If I meant him something, he would have called me at least.
Sara sighs.
Are these emotions I feel real at all? Or have they evolved only because of all that horror that happened to him? Are they just results of the sudden fear of losing him? Losing him as a friend…? Or as a man I care about more than that…?