Grissom's waiting had turned to dozing. It seemed an eternity, but was in reality about forty minutes later that Dr. Lawrence came walking out of the back room. Grissom awoke with a start and sat up. His eyes immediately took in the fresh blood…Nick's blood…on the front of the doctor's white lab coat. "How's he doing, Doc?"
"Well, the lavage results confirm my diagnosis. He's got blood and bile in his stomach cavity. It's probably a small tear in his liver. Under normal circumstances these things actually tend to heal themselves. Unfortunately, his pressure is dropping and his fever spiked another degree. Looks like biliary peritonitis. I've got him on antibiotics but he needs reparative surgery on the liver. I called Mercy Flight, our local airlift service, but there was a five car pile-up on the interstate and they have no choppers available. So looks like we make arrangements here."
"Doc, you've been great, and I don't doubt your skill. But what can you do here? This isn't exactly Desert Palms."
"Well, Mr. Grissom, the thing about medicine is that it doesn't really matter where it's practiced. It usually comes down to who practices it and how. We can get the bleeding stopped and get your friend stabilized until a med-evac becomes available."
Grissom found the man's confidence heartening. "I guess if surgeons can perform at the war front, you can do the job here, yes?"
"That's right, Mr. Grissom. And I'm bringing in reinforcements."
Sandy emerged from the back room, closing the door quietly behind her. She told her husband, "I got a hold of Tom and Jerry. They're on their way over now."
Grissom's face couldn't hide his surprise at the name of the 'reinforcements' and Sandy was quick to explain, "Tom and Jerry -- Jeraldine Aaron. Tom was a surgeon up in Seattle and his wife, Jerry, was an OR nurse. They came down to escape the rain," she said with a small smile. "He's awake if you want to visit for a bit. The Aarons should be here soon. I think we caught them before they'd gone to bed."
Grissom limped to the back and opened the exam room door. Nick was still prone on the table, covered in a blanket Grissom was pretty confident that Sandy had crocheted herself. There was a new IV in his hand and wire leads trailed from beneath the blanket at his chest to a portable EKG machine on a cart. A steel tray stood nearby covered in instruments and bloody gauze. He thought Sandy had been mistaken in her belief that Nick was awake, but then a pair of brown eyes opened blearily.
"Hey, Gris. " He looked down at the hand-knit blanket and the IV in his hand in obvious confusion. "They put something in my stomach, yeah? The test the doctor mentioned. Did I pass?" he asked with a wry grin.
"Yeah, Nick. You passed with flying colors. You did so well they're going to do a bit more for you."
"More, huh? That doesn't sound like I passed. What's going on?"
"Dr. Lawrence thinks you've got a tear in your liver. He's going back in to fix it up."
Nick accepted this information silently, taking it all in through his narcotic haze.
"I guess he's gotta do what he's gotta do, huh? Don't think I'm in much of a position to say no."
That's you, Nick. To a tee. You always suck it up and do what you have to do.
"How are you feeling right now?"
"Pretty damn good, actually. Whatever Sandy stuck me with is some good stuff. You oughta try it, Grissom. No more pain."
"About that, Nick…why didn't you say anything about the pain before?"
"What was I supposed to do, Boss? Nothing to be done about it out in the woods. I kinda had a sneaking suspicion. I wanted that aspirin so bad, but I figured, why risk taking it, you know?"
Grissom thought back to when he took the aspirin back on their first day in the woods. To think that Nick was worried enough at that point to be concerned about aspirin's anti-coagulant properties.
"Why didn't you come back to the clinic with me?"
"I was feeling pretty good then. Flying, even."
Grissom remembered Sara's offhand comment in the deputies' truck about adrenaline. If he'd been thinking clearly he'd have insisted Nick come back with them. The doctor's diagnosis of peritonitis rang in his head. If Brass and Warrick hadn't been more aware and insisted that he come in…
He began to tell Nick of these thoughts, but for the second time in the last 24 hours, while he had been preoccupied with his own thoughts, Nick had drifted off to sleep.