Disclaimer: They are not mine.

Rating: K+ or PG

Pairings: None at all

Spoilers: Spoiler heavy for Grave Danger.

Summary: Nick is kept under hospital observation for 5 nights following Grave Danger. With a different team member watching him each night, they can each find their own resolve. No pairings. Focused on each character. WIP.

Concrit! Great stuff – thank you very much! I always ask for concrit but I think people are often too polite to do it. Yes, now I come to think of it, he was taking it extremely well, considering! Sorry, I suppose I figured at the time that it was a mixture of him putting on a brave face for his friends and also it not having really sunken in yet. But you're right, two against one – and I hope this chapter is a little better. That's the beauty of it being a WIP, I guess – the only pro – that anything you suggest for change, can just be written in straight away. So again, any comments and pointers for Chapter Three would be really brilliant. Otherwise, thank you very much for the reviews, gckyr, Dane, Lissa88 (it really was!), everybetty, KatKnits00 and TheMusicalPoet. They were much appreciated as I'm sure you can tell. Also thanks to Eine Klein Katze, everybetty, HYPERPISCES, KASEY(KC, TheMusicalPoet and willows.x.speed for putting this fic on Story Alert.

I hope this is, at the very least, an improvement. Thanks for the encouragement and tips. Enjoy! Love LJ xXx

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Five Night Observation. Chapter Two. Catherine Willows

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Breathe fast.

Breathe slow.

Nick fights the covers off and tangles his IV line with the blankets so it tugs at the needle and wakes him with a stinging jolt. Even under the high, white ceilings of the hospital ward room, that stinging still feels like the sharp bite of a fire ant and his lungs gasp in a rattling breath in desperate fear.

You're gonna die here.

He tries to sit up, struggling for cool, fresh air. Cold sweat. Panicked breathing. Eyes wide.

"It's okay, sweetie, it's okay," Catherine cradles his face with a hand and strokes the only patch of his cheek that isn't marred by fire ant bites with her thumb. "It's just those dreams again, Nicky – it's okay."

"Cath," he chokes out, realising with relief where he is. "I thought I was –"

"I know, I know." she cuts him off. "That's only normal, Nicky. Here." She hands him a glass of water with a kind smile. Nick's hands tremble violently when he reaches to take it from her hands so, without saying a word, Catherine holds the rim of the glass to his lips instead. He takes a sip gratefully. She guessed his throat must be pretty dry – after all, she had just sat through his haunting screaming while he slept.

"Yeah – well it sucks," he mutters darkly and his lips tighten into a grim smile. "Oh well. It can only get better, right?"

"Without a doubt, Nicky," she assures him, returning his smile. "Without a doubt."

He shivers involuntarily. Every day his friends, his family, the people that he loves, come visiting with their faces carved in concern and anxiety. Nick Stokes was never one to cope well with making those he loved worry. So he plasters on a smile, bites down and cracks a joke on the surface, like skimming stones across dark waters and trying not to think about what lurks in the shadows below. But at night time, everything is in shadows. Everything is dark. And as soon as he closes his eyes to sleep, there's no difference between surface and shadow, no difference between reality and nightmare; they often cross over and become the same thing anyway.

Nick knows he screams and thrashes about in his sleep, even if no-one tells him. Why else would he wake up with a dry and cracked throat in the night? Why else does he find himself gasping for air, tangled in hospital sheets? Why else does he open his eyes wide to the night-sunken room and turn to his bedside where another loved one sits, watching him wordlessly with tear-welled eyes, begging him to wake up? Warrick...Catherine...who would be sitting there tomorrow night?

"I'm...I'm sorry, Catherine," he whispers hoarsely. Catherine starts.

"What?" she asks. "Sorry? What the hell for, Nicky?"

"Scaring you." He says.

"You didn't scare me," she lies, shaking her head. "I'm the one who should be sorry, Nicky. I'm sorry I couldn't find you sooner. I'm sorry I couldn't get you out of the there before..."

She trails off. Before what? Before the fire ants? Or earlier? Before the oxygen-depleted coffin messed with his mind? Before all of it – before everything? She was sorry she'd sent him out there at all. She was sorry she hadn't gotten him out of there before anything had even begun.

"Don't you start too, Catherine," Nick tells her jadedly, rolling his eyes. "First Warrick and now you guilt-tripping on me." He smiles at her. "Can we all just let it go?"

Catherine looks at him sadly. That's exactly what they all want to do – as soon as he voices it he knows. His own plea, albeit masked in light-heartedness: Can't we let it go? Can't I forget?

"I wish we could."

Nick sighs. "I'm tired, Cath." he mumbles.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Nicky," she sits up. "I'll let you sleep; I'm sorry."

"I can't sleep," he continues. "You know that – you heard me. When I'm asleep...when I'm asleep..."

Again, words fail them both. How can Catherine possibly put into words what it's like to watch him fight the nightmare and the memories that relentlessly catch up to him?

"Nicky, I'm so sorry," she blurts out, taking his hand in hers.

"How many times, Cath?" he says with faux-exasperation. "It wasn't your fault." He studies her face closely and can see she's about to cry. "Hey," he speaks up, brightly. "I heard what you did for me – getting the ransom money. Thank you, Cath."

She responds with a sharp, bitter laugh. "Not like it helped at all." she mutters. "It all got blown up along with the asshole who took you."

"But you tried, Cath – that's the important part," he insists.

"No, it's not, Nicky," she cuts him off. "Trying is not the important part – not in something like this. Succeeding is all that matters when it comes to your life. Trying doesn't count for crap, Nicky and you know that." She sighs and smiles slightly. "Stop trying to make me feel better. It should be the other way around."

He squeezes her hand. "It works both ways," he tells her. "Thank you for being here."

"Anytime, Nicky," she replies softly as he rests his head back deeply into the pillows and shuts his eyes. "Anytime."

And as he drifts off into a fitful sleep, Catherine stays sitting there at his bedside for the one-night watch they both needed. Chewing on her lower lip, she props her elbows against the mattress and sinks her head in her hands.

Night terrors lick at the edges of his dreamless sleep and crawl in, infesting every dark corner. In Exam Room 4, Nick Stokes starts off with distant murmurs, frowns and quiet whimpers – a child again, frightened by the night and all that hides within. He stirs in his bed and the stirring becomes shaking and the shaking becomes flailing. He starts to scream again, those tortured yells all within his sleep.

Catherine rubs her tears off onto her sleeve every now and then as she leans over him, perched on the edge of her chair. She touches his face gently, wanting both to wake him up and save him and to let him get his much-needed sleep.

"It's alright, Nicky," she whispers in a motherly way as his face contorts itself at the horrors he relives beneath closed eyes. She strokes his hair. "Everything's okay, Nicky, sweetie."

Nick Stokes is six years old again. He remembers past the horrific memories and sinks further back into the past. Another night, another bad dream; Nicky clambers into his parent's bed.

Another bad dream, Nicky?

He nods his head and chews on his pyjama sleeve. His mother smiles gently at him and strokes his soft brown hair lightly. Flashes of blindingly bright lights clicking on and off seem to fade slightly. The whir of the fan in the clamouring heat of the glass coffin seems to be muffled a little.

It's okay now, though, sweetie. You can go back to sleep. It's just a dream. Everything's okay.

Catherine smiles grimly at the tears that leak from the corners of Nick's eyes, tightly shut but he stops thrashing about in the bed so much. His screaming becomes more infrequent and less piercing. It can only get better. Without a doubt.

Everything's okay.

- o -