Chapter Twelve

Greg felt as though he was out of the loop on something, and had been for a while. Every soul in the lab was quiet, and many were shooting nervous glances at one another and looking at the door to the break room, which was shut.

He frowned. That door was never shut.

The halls weren't just quiet. They were eerily silent. Something was going down. Greg spotted Archie peeking out of the A/V room and redirected his course, headed towards him. Archie saw him approaching and motioned conspiratorially for Greg to come in.

"What's going on around here?" Greg asked.

Archie shot another glance out of the room and wheeled his chair over a counter. "You don't know? How do I know, and you don't?"

"Know what?"

Archie shrugged, like it should have been obvious. "About Nick."

It was obvious. Greg rolled his eyes. "Come on, everyone knows what's been going on with him. He's not that great an actor."

Archie frowned. "Yeah, that's why they went in there."

What? Who? "What are you talking about?"

Archie sighed. "The whole shift…well, almost the whole shift…"

Greg frowned.

"They're in the break room with him. Some kind of intervention, I think."

Greg was hurt. His coworkers, his friends, had felt that Nick had needed something so serious and hadn't talked to him about it, or asked him to be a part of it. He was also surprised. "So how did you know, and I didn't?" he asked the A/V tech.

Archie smiled and spun in his chair. "You know things don't stay hidden very long in this lab, Greg. We're CSI techs. We know how to find things out when we really want to."

Greg rolled his eyes again and leaned out the doorway, staring at the closed door to the break room. He wished they would have come to him with this idea of theirs, because he would have tried to talk them out of it.

More than any of them, despite their good intentions, Greg could understand the pain Nick was going through. He would have tried to explain that something like this wasn't going to get the desired results. He couldn't imagine the extreme extent of what Nick was feeling, but he had a pretty good idea. There were lingering, occasional flashbacks or nightmares of his own little brush with danger, the explosion in the DNA lab. If he had shut himself in, there was no way being cornered by the people he trusted would have opened him back up.

Greg bit his lip. He hoped they knew what they were doing.

Sara bit her lip. She hoped they knew what they were doing.

Nick was obviously taken by surprise when they entered the room the way they did, as a group. The last one in, Sara pulled the door closed behind her.

"Hey, guys," Nick said, somewhat shakily, and turned awkwardly in his chair, unable to escape them when they came at him like this. "What's up?"

They'd talked about how this was going to work, about how they were going to approach him. If the four of them stood in a line, all together, Nick would feel as though they were against him. If they spread out too far, he would feel like they were surrounding him.

Grissom stood by the door, his hands casually in his pockets, trying not to come off as threatening. Warrick attempted the same by perching on an arm of the couch, a safe distance away. Catherine and Sara both pulled out chairs and sat at the table with Nick; Catherine across from him, and Sara beside him. Close, but not too close.

Nick looked around at all of them in turn, and Sara could see how nervous he was, though he tried to downplay it. He swallowed and winced.

However hard he tried, he was clearly unnerved by their silence. "Seriously, what's up?"

Sara reached for his hand, which was resting on the table top, but as soon as her fingers touched his, he flinched and drew it back. He shot her an apologetic look, but she could tell he was already starting to freak out.

"We want you to understand, Nick," Grissom said, and Sara marveled at how steady his voice was. "We're just here to help you."

"Help me with what?" Nick asked with a smile that was so close to, but not exactly like, the ones that he used to throw around.

"With that, man," Warrick said.

Grissom shot him a warning look, and Nick followed it like a tennis ball.

"W – what is this?" He looked around between them all. "Some kind of intervention?"

They each averted their eyes, gazing into opposite corners of the suddenly too small room. This was going to be harder than they'd thought.

Nick gave a small, nervous laugh. "You guys think I need an intervention?"

"Don't you?" Catherine asked, leaning forward. "You've got to know that you need some kind of help, Nicky."

"No," Nick said, shaking his head. "Not really."

"You don't have to talk to us if you don't want – "

"I don't want," Nick interrupted.

" – but we've set up an appointment for you," Grissom finished.

"What kind of appointment?"

Sara could swear that she had never heard his accent so thick, not even when she first met him, what, five years earlier. "With a therapist," she said, as gently as she could.

Nick gaped at her accusingly, like he'd been betrayed. Maybe he had been. This had all started because of her. "What gives you the right to do that?" he asked.

"The fact that we care about you," Warrick said.

Nick laughed darkly, defenses rising. "Did you care about me when you did this?" he asked, gesturing to his cheek.

Warrick clenched his jaw. "Of course I did. I wouldn't have reacted so strongly if I didn't. You're like my brother, man. You know that."

Nick shook his head. "I don't know anything."

Warrick sat back, a hurt look in his bright green eyes. Sara grew worried when she saw a little anger sprouting there, too. These two were going to get into it again if someone didn't do something, and fast.

"That's not fair, Nick," Catherine, the voice of peace, said quickly, shooting a look sideways at Warrick. "You know we all care about you."

"Then let me deal with things the way I deal with things," Nick said, his eyes wide and imploring, his breathing starting to pick up.

"But you're not dealing with things, "Warrick said. "That's what you told Gris, right?"

Nick's head shot up in Grissom's direction. "You told them what I said." It wasn't a question. His eyes fell, and Sara could see the start of angry, desperate tears.

Grissom stood straight, a stoic expression on his face. Sara mentally pleaded with him to say something, before Nick or someone else said something they would all regret.

"So, what?" Nick spat out angrily. "You get me to say whatever you want and then go off and talk about it behind my back?"

"It wasn't like that, Nick," Grissom said.

"How am I supposed to trust you?" Nick looked around at them. "Any of you?"

"Because it's us, man," Warrick said.

Nick snorted, and shakily stood.

Sara frowned, noticing he needed both arms to brace himself against the tabletop. She studied his pale face, which seemed to be draining of more color as the seconds ticked by.

"Warrick," she started. She was going to tell him to cool off a bit, but he didn't seem to hear her. No one did.

"How could you think we were just going to let you go through this on your own?"

"I've been on my own," Nick said, his voice rising, his color fading. "Where have you been before this week?"

"Nicky, we were all right here," Catherine said, in that soothing, motherly tone that she often used to calm one of them or talk them down.

"Yeah, you weren't exactly open to letting us help you," Warrick said. He seemed to have realized he was antagonizing Nick, and toned it down quite a bit.

Nick, however, did not notice. "Because I didn't need any help! I was getting along just fine. Don't you think I'm smart enough to know when I need help?"

Sweat dotted his forehead, and Sara was getting worried.

Grissom continued to stand quietly by the door. He always waited for the opportune moment to leap into a conversation, and Sara hoped that moment would arise soon.

"Obviously not." Warrick wasn't taking too well to Nick's rising voice, and his own started to rise again.

Catherine turned to him. "Warrick, I know you're concerned, but we agreed not to do it like this."

Nick gave another uneasy laugh. "So you guys do talk about me, huh?"

Catherine sighed. "We're not here to make you mad, Nick. We just want – "

"To help me," Nick cut in sarcastically. "I get it."

"No, Nick," Grissom finally said. "You don't."

"I'm not…a child," Nick said. His voice was growing hoarse, his arms shaking as though they couldn't support his weight.

Sara cast an uneasy glance as Catherine, who was also watching Nick closely.

"Nick, honey, you need to sit down," Catherine said gently, goals and tactics changing in the blink of an eye. Her voice did not betray the alarm in her eyes.

"I'm…fine." Nick was breathing heavily, and started to sway, and Sara grabbed hold of his arm to steady him.

Grissom took a step forward as Warrick rose slowly from the couch. They both looked as concerned as Sara felt.

"Nick?" she asked tentatively.

He shook his head, his eyes wide and fearful. Sara grew instantly alarmed at how they started to glaze over.

"No," he said, so quietly it was safe to assume that he was talking to himself. He took a step back, or tried to, anyway. As soon as his hands came away from the table, it was like his anchor had been taken away.

Sara, being the closest to him, jumped up to try and catch him as his eyes rolled back and he crumpled to the floor.

To be continued...