Prison infirmary, Huntsville, Texas

"Sorry, Mr. Stokes. I'm afraid that your recovery isn't going as…" Doyle stopped, looking at Stokes' IV. The syringe was missing.

"Well, what the…" She put a hand on the bed rail as he bent and looked under the bed, to see if the syringe had dislodged somehow. There was a sudden sting in her hand, and she looked up.

Stokes was sitting up, as much as he could, and his arm was flexed, the muscles standing out sharply, the restraints that had been loose now taught against the steel frame. He was looking at her hand, his eyes open wide and his mouth a grim line.

She followed his gaze and saw, palmed in his hand, the missing syringe, which he must have shaken out of his IV while she was on the phone. With a grunt, he flexed his biceps and the strap cut into his wrist, and the edge of the plunger on the syringe pushed against the bed frame.

"No, no," she gasped, watching the thick liquid surging through the needle into her hand. Almost immediately she felt the burning, itchy fire of the drug crawling up her arm. The needle must have hit the ulnar artery in her hand- she could feel it spreading into her system, a massive dose as the syringe drained directly into her.

She took a step back, and pulled the needle from her hand, dropping it at her feet.

"That was… oh, you bastard," she said, still backing away. She put out her hands as if to steady herself, then suddenly pitched over to her right as she overbalanced. She collided with a tray of instruments, and they all collapsed with her to the floor with a huge clatter and crash.

"You bastard," she said again, thickly, looking up at him from the floor where she sat. There was something long and dully gleaming sticking at an angle out of her right thigh, and bright arterial blood arced thirty or forty centimeters to the side with each beat of her heart. She looked down, confused, at the pool of blood rapidly spreading around her.

Nick, still trying to free himself from the straps on the bed, could only watch as she bled out. He tried to call out, but he was still so hoarse that only a soft croaking emerged. He watched as she tried to put her hand over the wound, but she was too disoriented from the scopolamine to do much more than cover her hands in her own blood.

"You bastard," she said again, sadly.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, honestly, to her. He didn't know if she heard, but she slipped over, her eyes still open. The blood stopped spurting from her leg and began to seep and pool around her. She was gone.

Nick strained at the bonds that held him, and gave up pulling against them with a sigh. When he opened his eyes, there was someone moving towards him, a patient from the bed across the infirmary from him. He was wearing a paper gown, spotted with dried blood, and his face was a mass of bruises and cuts, with a bandage over one eye lending a piratical air.

As he closed with Stokes, the shambling man reached down and picked something up off a tray that had not fallen over with Doctor Doyle. He raised his hand to Nick's face, and laughed, a wet, painful chuckle. In his hand, he held a scalpel, its blued steel blade short and wicked, reflecting the pool of blood at the man's feet where Doctor Doyle lay dead. He reached towards Nick with the blade.

- - -

CSI Office, Las Vegas, Nevada

Gil Grissom regarded his nominal supervisor coolly. His tone was somehow both detached and demanding.

"Conrad, we can't go on like this for much longer. We have to know what's happening."

Ecklie bit back a sarcastic reply.

"Well, Gil," he said at last, "when I have approval to bring someone in to replace Stokes, you'll know." He shrugged indifferently.

"Right." Grissom seemed somewhat deflated, lacking his usual joy in sparring with Ecklie. The entire second and third shift had been working long hours, covering for the shortage of Stokes. Grissom turned and stalked back to his office.

Once the door was closed, Ecklie took a worn business card out of his shirt pocket and dialed the number written there.

"District Attorney's Office," said the generically helpful voice.

"Extension 214, please," Ecklie said. Once he was connected, he asked tiredly, "How much longer is this going to go on?"

"It takes as long as it takes, Mr. Ecklie."

"They're pushing me to replace Stokes. I can't stall forever."

"Well, even when this is over, you might be short handed a little while. Get me the cost to bring in some temp help, we have some budget left."

"Yeah, that's fine. But just bring our guy back to us, alright?"

Ecklie was staring out the small window of his office long after conversation ended, wondering what things must be like for Nick Stokes right about then.

- - -

Prison infirmary, Huntsville, Texas

With one quick slash of a scalpel, the bloody figure that had been lumbering towards the restrained form of Nick Stokes cut through the ties of Stokes' restraining strap. When Stokes jerked his arm away, the man realized how he must appear to Stokes.

He took a half step backwards, swaying in the pain of his many injuries.

"Do?" he hissed between broken teeth. "Miss… sauce?"

Stokes looked at him in shock. The code phrase, that stupid code phrase.

"Not as much as I missed you. God, what did they…" He faltered. The man before him had until recently been a fit, no nonsense prison guard. Now he was a ruined mass of cuts, bruises already turning nasty yellow and purple, and most likely a lost eye, maybe two.

"Dave," whispered the guard, "Dave George." He handed Stokes the scalpel so the younger man could finish freeing himself.

"We have to call the warden, Dave, we have to get ourselves out of this place."

With the broken fingers of his other hand, Officer George slowly raised something that looked like a car remote entry fob.

"Panic button," he said with effort, "They… already coming."

Stokes released himself from the bed, and then went over to look at the fallen body of Doctor Doyle. She had bled out from a punctured femoral vein, and was quite dead.

"Well, Dave, let's get the fuck out of Dodge," Stokes said, just as the Warden and two of his personal guards burst into the clinic, calling for Stokes and George.

- - -

DFW International Airport terminal, Irving, Texas

Marta Sanchez left her keys in the ignition of her car, the doors unlocked, as she entered the terminal at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. The car would most likely disappear, just as she was about to do. One less worry.

She looked carefully up and down the curbside check in area for familiar faces, and, spotting none, she took care of her last bit of business. She dropped her service pistol and her last-used cell phone, both wrapped in a copy of the Morning News, into a trash can as she slipped into the airport.

Even for someone like Sanchez, it just wasn't worth trying to get a gun onto a plane, post 9-11. She'd call when she hit the island, and arm up before visiting the offshore bank where must of her money was heading.

She entered the terminal building and cleared the security checkpoint with the boarding pass she had printed from her home computer. In seven hours, give or take, she would be on the beach, and maybe she'd make a phone call or two and make Judge Stokes as dead as his little boy. She smiled to herself as the gate agent noted her pass.

"Ma'am? First Class is not full on this flight. Would you like me to see if we can get you upgraded?" The woman had kind eyes in a bland brown face. She looked just a little like Marta's abuela, Rosalin.

"Why yes, that would be great." She shifted her bag, with a laptop and a few thousand dollars walking-around money, to her shoulder as she handed over her boarding pass. First class after all. This was more like it.

"Why don't you please come with me? You can wait in the First Class lounge while I get that taken care of for you, Ma'am." The woman led her past the Commodore's Club to a door marked "Empire Service."

Marta smiled as she passed through the revolving door into the lounge. It looked like she was finally going to get the kind of treatment she deserved.

- - -

Security Area, DFW International Airport, Irving, Texas.

"Hold your fire, men," the SWAT officer said softly into his throat mike as the revolving door began to turn. Once it had revolved 180 degrees, the security door locked as forged steel bolts dropped into place along its edge. The occupant of the door chamber stumbled slightly as she came into the room.

"Marta Sanchez, you are under arrest!" The SWAT commander's voice was clear and decisive. "Stay where you are and put your hands on your head!"

Sanchez, a look of confused betrayal flickering briefly across her face, backed against the unmoving door. She looked frantically around for an escape from the five armed men facing her in the concrete and steel pillar constructed security room. She turned and put a shoulder to the door, clawing with her hands at the locking bar.

"I said stay where you are, God damn it!" The SWAT commander shook his head. "Packman, one round!" He flinched slightly but kept his eyes on the target as he heard the "Whumpf!" of a tactical grenade going past him.

Sanchez collapsed in the cloud of pepper gas, her eyes streaming tears and her mouth filled with adrenaline and bile. Within six minutes, she had been apprehended, searched, cuffed, and moved into a secure transport. The air was already clearing in the security room when the SWAT transport cleared the airport perimeter, heading for the concrete honeycomb block of Dallas' Lou Sterret county jail.

Her cursing, neither clear nor particularly inventive, was audible from the back of the transport as they rolled onto the LBJ Expressway. The commander smiled as he made his report via secure radio.

- - -

Ben Taub Hospital, Houston, Texas, one week later.

"Hey, sleepyhead, you got a visitor."

Lauren Stokes' voice was soft, dry, but still so much stronger than he could remember it being in a long time. She was in a wheelchair next to his bed, but when she thought no one was looking she could take short walks around his room. All things considered, it was amazing.

Still, being her brother, her little brother at that, Nick couldn't do the miracle true justice. He lay in his hospital bed, idly counting drops of antibiotics as they fell in his IV. He pretended not to hear her.

"Well, I'm going to go find someone who's actually sick to bother, brother. See ya." She mimed throwing a pillow at him, and he almost smiled.

As she left, he noticed someone else coming in, but he was too lost in his own thoughts to pay much attention. There was a soft rustling of clothing as the visitor settled, but nothing was said.

At last, his guest spoke.

"You look like shit, Nicky. We need to get you back home to Vegas."

Stokes turned, surprised. "Warrick? What are you… when?"

"I just got in. We're going to be here for a few days, help you get all the paperwork straightened out so we can get you back home and back on the job, when you're ready."

"Oh man," Stokes breathed closing his eyes and picturing Vegas like the rainbow's end. "I am so ready to go home. I missed you guys."

"I know, Nick." Warrick looked down. "The DA who ran this whole thing, he briefed Grissom himself yesterday, and Gris sent us to help you come home."

"Wait, us? Who's here?"

"Catherine and I, just for a few days. I know they won't release you till tomorrow at the earliest anyway." Was that a trace of a grin on Warrick's face?

"Traveling with Catherine, that must be interesting," Nick nodded to himself. He was sure he wasn't imagining Warrick's quickly suppressed grin.

"It has advantages," Warrick confirmed blandly. "So, they're supposed to take you downstairs in an hour or so, then once they're sure everything is okay, looks like tomorrow you get out?"

"Downstairs? But I'm done with everything except…" he paled, and his hand went of it's own volition to the side of his head, where the prominent swastika was still visible through his short hair.

"Hey, Warrick, about that. Listen," Nick looked like he was going to be sick. Warrick wondered how he'd ever pulled off an undercover.

"It's okay, Nick. The DA told me all about it, and they'll be taking it off pretty well. Since it was a rush job, there might be a little scarring but none of the pigment will be left, they promised me."

"I just never wanted you to think, well." Nick sat for a minute. "Thanks, man."

"Sure thing, bro." Warrick checked his watch. "Unless you need anything, I'm going to go check in, make a few calls and whatnot. See what Catherine's up to. See you in the morning?"

"Yeah, thanks. I can't wait."

Warrick touched his arm, giving is bicep something between a pat and a squeeze.

"Get better. See you tomorrow. Oh, and the DA's outside. You want him to come back or can he pop in for a minute?"

"Sure, thanks."

The DA entered a few minutes after Warrick left, which was helpful, as Nick still wanted a moment to regain his composure. The thought of finally going home was getting to him, along with all that had happened over the last few months.

"Officer Stokes, I wanted to tell you again, thank you for all your work on this case. I know it was hard on you, and your family." The DA, a trim, intense young black man wore a suit with a small Texas flag pin in his lapel.

"Nick," Stokes said firmly. "Call me Nick."

"Nick." The DA nodded, and after questioning with his eyes, sat at the edge of the bed. "Well, Nick, after all we've been through, I suppose a first name basis won't do any harm."

"I suppose not, Marcellus. I suppose not."

-fin-