Disclaimer: They are not mine. Could I ever make a finale up to the standard of Grave Danger? Christ no.
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.
So that was better – wasn't it? Thanks for the reviews, they were really wonderful and very supportive. Sorry to Scarlett – I didn't credit your review for Chapter One but I got it just a second too late, luckily your comments were the same as Dane and everybetty's so hopefully Chapter Two was a bit more up to standard.
Thank you for the Chapter Two reviews, tria246815 (your wait is over! But don't forget – absolutely no rock solid pairings in this fic), KatKnits00, everybetty (am so glad you liked that part! And it's all about the readers really anyway – you all had a point; it wasn't realistic. Three instalments? There are still three to come after this one! But no Brass, sorry!), MissyJane, Kristen999, NothingButSarah (Yes! They all were truly fantastic in the finale – some real first class acting. The best season finale of any show I've ever seen.), willows.x.speed, September and KASEY(KC.
Some really lovely reviews there – please keep the feedback coming in. Who do ya reckon will be next? Enjoy! Love LJ xXx
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Five Night Observation. Chapter Three. Sara Sidle
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He'd forgotten this part - the part where he's lying on the cold metal slab in Doc Robbins' autopsy room. He looks up at his friends that gather around him, waiting with both anticipation and dread for Doctor Al to make that first incision into dead flesh.
I'm dead, he thinks, oh shit – I'm dead.
Nick gazes around at the faces that surround his body. He sees Warrick's face scrunched in anguish; he's probably tormenting himself with far more guilt than he can handle. Opposite him stands Catherine, half-covering her face with her palms so he cannot read her expression, but her hands tremble and her shoulders shake. Grissom has one hand on her shoulder and he stands like solidarity, with a stony expression but a kind of aching resignation to the truth that stares them in the face. Sara is on Nick's left. She's biting down on her lower lip and not making a sound as rivers of tears track their way down her cheeks. Greg, standing between her and Warrick, is close to the same stage and he grips tightly onto the edge of the table as though it's the only thing holding him up.
"Are you ready?" Doc Robbins murmurs in the silent room. He holds a scalpel deftly between his gloved fingers. Grissom gives a nod.
"No!" Nick tries to scream – does scream – but nobody seems to hear. "No, I'm not ready, dammit!"
Al carefully begins to drag the blade down the centre of his chest in the way an artist sweeps a paintbrush with precision and beauty.
"Can you hear me?" Nick yells. "I'm still alive – stop it."
Warrick grabs Al's arm, mid-incision. His eyes narrow. His breathing stops.
"Do you hear that?" he says, quietly. Everyone in the room pauses.
"Thank you!" Nick sighs. "Jesus, man – that was a close one."
"Yeah, I do." Catherine says, bringing her hands back from her tear-stained face. "A kind of...rustling?"
"What is that?" Grissom leans closer.
The next sequences of events happen in a sickening rush that Nick sees before his eyes with such vividness that his whole body seems to seize up and shake. His eyes widen in horror as he watches the neat incision Doctor Al Robbins has made, split deeper on its own. The flesh on his chest parts evenly in a biblical Red Sea fashion. And there – out of the gaping wound in his chest, millions of fire ants scramble. They fight over each other and chew away at his insides, spilling out of the gash on his chest and picking with tiny mouths at his stark white ribcage. Thousands and thousands; all feasting on his entrails in the cavity of his chest and crawling, crawling, crawling.
He knows he's screaming now. He's screaming and screaming as he tries to move away from what's in his own body. The autopsy room is now empty. There's no Doc Robbins standing over him with scalpel in hand. There's no faceless Grissom, no shaking Catherine, no pale Greg or guilt-ridden Warrick.
But there is a crying Sara. She's still there.
"Nick," she whispers through tears. She sniffs and rubs her eyes with forearm. "Nicky, please wake up." She's clasping his left hand in hers and brings it up to her chest as she stands at his bedside. "Please, please wake up."
His eyes blink open. He stops screaming with a jolt.
"Oh...oh god." he manages to get out in a constricted voice. "They were – they were everywhere." His skin feels chilled and all his hairs stand on end. His body won't stop convulsing.
"It's okay, Nicky." she tells him. "It wasn't real; it's all in your head." But from her face which holds a mixture of shock, regret and pain, he knows it's not 'okay' as he's been so persistently told. It's not okay at all.
"I thought it would get better. You all told me it'd get better," he says accusingly, catching his breath. The hand Sara's holding stops trembling so violently and the convulsions relax into quaking shivers. "But it's not. It's getting worse."
Sara sighs and takes a seat by his bed. "I don't know what to say, Nicky." She absent-mindedly strokes his hand as it lies in her lap and sighs again. "How could we have let this happen to you?"
Nick doesn't respond; he doesn't know if he has the energy to assure them over again that it what happened to him was none of their faults. As much as he loves Sara, he feels far too weak and tired to even begin to convince her she wasn't to blame.
"I mean," she continues. "If we'd lost you, Nicky, I don't know if I would be able to..."
He never gets to find out what she doesn't know if she'd be able to do because, at that point, Sara's voice fails her again and the tears start to fall down her face again. Nick stares at her for a moment in shock. He had no idea she was taking it so badly.
"Oh Sar..." he murmurs. "Please don't cry. Come on Sara – don't cry on me now. You know how much I hate it when you cry."
She laughs slightly and smiles at him, shaking her head. "You should have seen me two nights ago," she tells him. "You should have seen all of us two nights ago."
"I'm glad I didn't if it was anything like now," he kids gently. She dries her eyes again and grins.
"It was worse," she says. "Sorry – I'm done now."
"Good," he squeezes her hand. "Because there's really nothing to cry about; I'm fine."
The smile wipes itself from her face when she sighs. The silence fills them both until she speaks up quietly.
"Nicky – I've been sitting here all night, you know."
His own face falls. Of course – she'd been there while he was sleeping, she'd heard those screams and they both know he is not fine.
"I will be," he asserts with more determination than he feels. "I'll be alright."
"You will – I know you will," she nods firmly.
He pauses, wondering whether or not to voice the nightmares that chase him when he sleeps. He doesn't want Sara to worry – but she's already worrying, and he wants to get it out – then maybe he can start on getting better again.
"It was those ants," he begins. He looks across at Sara but she only waits for him to continue. "I know it sounds stupid, but I keep having these nightmares about everything that happened. And tonight was the worst one. I was dead in this one – at least, you all thought I was dead. I was on Doc Robbins' table with all of you standing around and he cuts open my chest." He shudders at the memory. "And inside were all these fire ants. Full of them. All eating away and crawling out..."
Nick turns to Sara with haunted eyes.
"Oh Nicky," she says softly. She bites down on her lip again, furious at herself. "His daughter was right there. She told us about her gardening plot and I just ignored her. We could have got you out of there before the ants. But I didn't listen – I was so stupid."
"Hey, Sar – if you'd done that, we'd all have been blown to pieces, wouldn't we?" he reminds her. He raises his eyebrows at her and tries to shrug it off. "What time is it?" he asks, changing the subject.
Sara glances at her wristwatch. "Half three in the morning."
He smiles. "My Mom and Dad will be heading to the airport soon. They're flying home tonight."
"Do you want me to get them on the phone?" Sara offers, getting to her feet. "Before they go?" But Nick grabs her arm quickly before she's even taken a step away from the bed.
"No." he says sharply. "No – don't leave me, Sara."
Sara looks at him, almost surprised at the sudden helplessness in his voice; a steep contrast from his casual conversation just seconds earlier.
"I really want to sleep," he goes on. "But I don't want to be alone. I don't want to wake up alone."
"Okay...okay – it's okay," she soothes as his voice gets tighter and words run together. She hesitates and then perches on the bed. Nick smiles thankfully and shuffles over on the hospital mattress to rest his head in her lap.
"Thank you."
Sara shrugs her shoulders and takes his hand again. "Hey, that's what I'm here for, Nicky." she answers and presses a gentle kiss to the palm of his hand. "Go to sleep. If it gets too much, I'll wake you up again."
He shuts his eyes.
"You promise?" he asks her in a small voice, childlike once again. "Because I can't take any more of those dreams."
"I promise, Nicky," she pledges. "I promise."
Sara doesn't even realise for how long she's stays sitting like that, waiting for the nightmares to swallow up her colleague, friend and surrogate-brother again. But he's quiet. And it isn't until she looks out of the window and sees the orange-pink-red morning sunrise stretch out beyond the Desert Palms blinds, that Sara realises with a smile that she's just been sitting there for two and a half hours, with Nick's head resting calmly in her lap and his steady breathing filling the otherwise quiet room.
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