Chapter Ten

Warrick didn't hold back. He tackled the other man with all that he had, physical strength and emotions simmering just below the surface, boiling over as his body connected with Crane. There was quite a bit of rage and frustration pent up inside. Nigel Crane could just thank his lucky stars Warrick had found Nick with the gun pointed at him instead of the other way around, or else things would have really gotten ugly.

Warrick was immensely satisfied with the grunt of pain his surprise attack elicited from the smaller man and it was all he could do not to pound him into a bloody mess for all that he had done. But there were other things to be taken care of. This man was a meaningless waste of God's good time and talent.

Warrick held Crane on the ground and without taking his eyes off of him, spoke to his friend. "Nick, man, you all right?"

There was no response.

Warrick's heart rate quickened, thumping loudly, each beat sounding like a blow inside of his ears. He didn't want to risk looking away from Crane, but was starting to get really worried. "Nicky?"

Warrick heard approaching footsteps, something being said he couldn't quite make out through the pumping in his head – quiet and calm. Then another shape appeared next to him, and Jim Brass placed a firm hand between Crane's shoulder blades.

"I got him," the detective said. Warrick met his eyes, which said 'go get Nick.'

Warrick whirled and was stunned by the sight of his friend. Nick was standing just as still as he'd ever seen someone stand, one arm held tight to his side, the other wavering with the weight of the gun. He took in the blood on his left side and head, both dried and fresh, with a hiss of sympathy and moved quickly to Nick's side.

"You wanna give me that gun, Nicky?" he asked, his voice as steady as he could make it. His relief at finding his friend relatively intact was no match for the concern he was feeling for the shape that friend was actually in. "Maybe sit down for a minute?" His voice cracked.

Nick didn't meet his eyes, but nodded slightly.

Warrick nodded back and carefully took the weapon from Nick's weak grip. Nick didn't make a move to sit, and Warrick's attention was again drawn to his blood-covered side.

He reached a hand out to move Nick's arm away. "Let me see."

Nick looked up. "It's okay," he said, so quiet, it was probably to himself.

In his head, Warrick could hear him finishing the phrase he'd heard so many times. I'm fine.

He was far from it.

Brass was clenching his jaw, Warrick could see it. Looking into the other room from behind a sheet of glass, he was experiencing an odd feeling of déjà vu. Flanking him on either side were Catherine and Grissom. Greg and Sara had offered to stay back at the hospital was Nick. Warrick was worried about his friend and wanted to be there with him, but was anxious to hear what this creep had to say for himself.

Just as the first time Nigel Crane had sat in this room, he was being uncooperative. There wasn't as much incoherent mumbling, but he wasn't answering Brass's questions, either.

"I'm only going to ask you this one more time," Brass gritted out. The frustration in his voice was clear to everyone who was listening in on the conversation. "Why did you take Nick?"

Crane cocked his head and smiled coldly at the detective. "I don't really know. It just seemed like the right thing to do."

Warrick's eyes narrowed. This guy was a piece of work. He wanted to rush into the room, grab the small man by his shirt and throw him into a wall. Unfortunately, he was already on Brass's shit list, and didn't figure doing anything like that would help him out any.

As if she could read his thoughts, Warrick felt a gentle yet restraining hand on his arm, and he glanced over at Catherine. Her face was set, but the underlying anger was evident in her eyes.

As for Grissom, Warrick had no idea what his supervisor was thinking. He hadn't said a single word since arriving at the station. Warrick knew Grissom had been just as freaked as he'd been while Nick was missing, if not more so, but he hadn't really said anything about it. He was just standing and staring, his face reading nothing more than his perpetual curiosity.

"Since when is shooting and kidnapping someone the right thing to do?"

All eyes went back to the window dividing the two rooms, back to Brass and Crane. Warrick squinted and crossed his arms. He just wanted answers.

"He deserved it." Crane sat forward in his chair, his cuffed hands resting on the tabletop. "He was supposed to be my friend – "

"Listen to me," Brass interrupted loudly. "Nick Stokes is not your friend, never was, and never will be. He's a good man, and you're a crazy son of a bitch who never should have been allowed near normal people." He looked to the officer at his right. "Get his sorry ass out of here."

Warrick sighed in frustration and shook his head. Ignoring the hand still clutching his arm, he pushed open the door and went straight to Brass.

The detective looked at him sympathetically. "He's out of it, 'Rick. Probably doesn't even realize what he's been doing. We're not going to get anything out of him."

"You really believe that? I think he's smarter than we're giving him credit for."

"I think we're already giving him too much credit." Brass watched with dark eyes as Crane was led out of the room and down the hall. He addressed Warrick without looking at him. "Have you checked up on him yet?"

"I wanted to see what we could get out of this guy first," he said pointedly. He wanted to make it clear to Brass that if they didn't interrogate Crane good and proper, it was a waste of the time he could have been spending with Nick at the hospital.

Brass's expression softened as he got the message. "I'll work on him some more, okay? Let's just let him stew for a while."

Warrick nodded and turned to leave the room. "Okay."

"I'm not done with you yet, 'Rick."

Warrick winced at the harsh change of tone in the detective's voice, knowing what was coming. Brass was sympathetic to Warrick's worries, but was still angry with him.

"I'm not going to apologize," Warrick said truthfully.

Brass cracked a small smile. "No, I didn't think you would." He shifted his weight, and the smile disappeared. "But that doesn't mean you shouldn't. I told you to stay away from the house and to let the PD do its job."

"And if I did that, Nick might not be enjoying the comfort of a hospital bed right now, he'd be lying in the morgue with a bullet in him," Warrick responded angrily. He suddenly became very aware of the two sets of eyes still looking into the room from the observation room, from behind the thick pane of glass.

He looked over to see one narrowed pair of eyes, and one pair glistening with a few unshed tears. He sent a silent apology to Catherine, wiping a finger under her eyes, for saying the things everyone had been afraid to even think about. That this man could have actually killed Nick.

"Be that as it may, when I tell you to do something, you do it," Brass said, his voice rising.

"You're not my boss," Warrick answered. "And like hell I was gonna just stand around and wait for the police to make their way in there."

It was the truth. He'd agreed to stay in the back of the group when they were heading into the houses, but wasn't so sure that given a clear shot, he wouldn't have taken it. No matter what Brass had said, or what Warrick may have promised him.

Brass's face held the angry look a moment longer, but Warrick could tell he was angry because he was obligated to be. He jerked his head to the door. "We're done here."

Warrick nodded and started to leave. He really wanted to get to the hospital.

"'Rick."

"Yeah?"

Brass seemed to be considering his words. "That gun's not your right, it's a privilege. It doesn't mean you can go running into dangerous situations. That's not your job."

Warrick knew he was right, but logic was not what had been fueling him at that moment. He'd been anxious, worried, and scared for his friend. That gunshot had been the most frightening sound in his life, and he'd reacted without thinking.

Brass gave him a tight smile, and Warrick knew he understood. He was reprimanding him in front of Grissom so that the supervisor wouldn't feel disciplinary action was in order.

"I'm, uh, I'm gonna head over to Palms and check up on Nick."

Brass nodded. "Tell him I'll be by later tonight. I want to be here if Crane starts talking."

Warrick nodded. He turned back to the window, where he could see Catherine and Grissom were still in the observation room. It looked like Catherine was saying something to Grissom, but it didn't seem that he was listening.

"You hear that?" he called to them.

Catherine nodded and leaned forward, pressing the intercom button. "Give me a minute, I'll go with you."

"Leavin' in five." Warrick turned his attention to Grissom, who nodded.

Warrick breathed a sigh of relief. He'd been worried Grissom was going to implode in on himself and end up avoiding going by the hospital. It was obvious Grissom was feeling some guilt, unnecessarily, over what had happened. It wasn't his fault. But there was no telling that to the supervisor.

The ride to the hospital was a quiet one. You would think that it would be a comfortable silence, with each person relishing in the relief that their friend was safe. That wasn't so much the case.

Warrick was concerned with Nick's silence as they'd left the house. Sure, he rightfully deserved to sit back and be quiet. He had looked, and most likely felt, like shit. He'd looked beaten and tired, and Warrick was worried how this whole ordeal would affect him.

He was worried what tomorrow would be like.

He gripped the steering wheel tightly, avoiding the eyes of his coworkers in the passenger and back seats. If he looked at Catherine, he was afraid he would have some kind of meltdown, or at least assist in one of her own. If he looked at Grissom, he was afraid he would snap and start yelling. The man had continued to appear calm throughout the whole thing and as bad as it sounded, Warrick hoped Grissom was feeling something like the pain and anger he was. There was no telling from looking at him, but Warrick knew all too well the man was an expert at keeping things to himself.

So Warrick just drove, without looking in the rearview mirror, not risking the chance of catching a glimpse of Grissom's calm eyes. His stomach tightened as he pulled the SUV into the parking garage adjacent to the hospital. He wanted to be there for his friend, but at the same time was nervous to see him. He'd talked to the paramedics at the house, and they said once Nick got some blood in him and some rest, he would be okay, physically.

But Warrick knew better. The doctors were going to say he was okay, Nick, himself was going to say he was okay, but things were going to take time to be okay again.

"Do you know which room he's in?" Catherine asked as they headed for the elevators.

Warrick held up the scrap of paper he'd scribbled the information on when Greg had called.

The three rode the elevator up to the third floor, and Warrick hesitated when he stepped off. He wondered if Nick was going to blame them for what happened. For not believing him. For not figuring out what was going on before it was too late. For not finding him until they did.

They'd pushed and pushed until they got Nick in a private room. They didn't want any more people around him than was absolutely necessary. When they came to the door, Grissom paused.

"I'll let you guys go in first," he said quietly.

Warrick frowned at him.

"Don't be ridiculous," Catherine said gently. She knew just as well as Warrick did that Grissom was taking this badly. So badly he didn't know how to deal with it.

The room was dim. The doctors had told Sara and Greg the CAT scan had indicated Nick's head had been knocked around quite a bit, especially on the left side. He was asleep at the moment but Sara kept the lights dimmed anyway, just in case he woke up. She didn't want to cause him anymore discomfort. God knows he's been through enough, she thought.

Sara sighed and adjusted herself in the uncomfortable plastic chair. She'd often thought the hospital would provide more comfortable seating for visitors, as they were usually there for extended periods of time. She looked to her side, at the stack of magazines she'd flipped through a couple of times each already. Nothing she read in any of them had stuck. She was too distracted.

The television was on, and Sara had, for the most part, kept her eyes glued to the screen, flipping through the channels, never resting on one for more than fifteen seconds. She was trying not to look over at Nick, because she didn't want to lose it, and that was a very real possibility at the moment. It was harder to keep her composure now that she was alone in the room. Greg had stepped out to get coffee a while ago and had yet to return. Sara figured he was making calls, or just trying to keep it together, like she was. Avoiding seeing him.

Nick hadn't been awake since going under upon arriving at the hospital. He looked horribly pale, or at least he had the last time Sara had snuck a glance in his direction, probably due to all of the blood he'd lost. It nearly made her cry, and she didn't think she could look at him again without completely losing her cool. IVs running out of his hand, bandages on his head and more on his side, which she gratefully hadn't seen.

There was a light knock at the door, and Greg's head poked inside. "Hey," he said, coming into the room. "Grissom, Catherine, and Warrick are on their way." He handed Sara a coffee cup and took up his post in the second chair next to Nick's bed. "How is he?"

"Same?" was all Sara could offer.

The doctor had told them repeatedly that Nick's injuries weren't serious, that he was going to be okay. But Sara had heard him telling a nurse to call for a psychiatric consult when Nick woke up. She sipped her coffee and continued to flip through the channels.

"Good," Greg said, his legs fidgeting nervously. His eyes also went to the television screen.

They sat like that for a long while, watching programs twenty seconds at a time, nurses popping in every now and then, always with a smile and something reassuring to say, until there was another knock on the door.

Warrick stepped in the room first, his eyes widening at the sight of Nick lying in the hospital bed. Sara wasn't sure what he was expecting, but he seemed surprised by his friend's condition. "Hey, Nicky," he softly.

Greg stood and moved back to the corner, offering Warrick his chair. He practically collapsed into it, and Sara knew he wasn't going to be moving for a while.

Catherine went straight to Nick's side and grasped his hand gently, giving it a small squeeze. "How's he doing?" she asked, never taking her eyes off of him.

"He's going to be okay," Greg said. It was all anyone was saying. Until he woke up, there was really no way to accurately gauge just how "okay" he was going to be.

Sara nodded, feeling a flash of envy towards Catherine, who'd been able to look at Nick, to touch him without crying. She couldn't bring herself to do it right now.

Sara felt a final presence enter the room and she turned slowly to Grissom, her eyes meeting his. He looked away, then back at her. He seemed so lost and helpless, something she knew he was unfamiliar feeling. Grissom always knew what was going on. He always had a plan. Here, there was nothing he could do.

Sara wanted to go to him, to give him a hug and tell him this couldn't have been helped by anything he might have done. That this wasn't his fault.

She might have worked up the courage to do it, but everyone's attention was diverted to the center of the room, as Nick began to stir.

There was one very important thing Jim Brass wished he was doing. Actually, there were many things he'd rather be doing that sitting in his dim office awaiting information about the psychopath that had hurt his friend. But more than anything, he wanted to be with that friend at the hospital, where the kid had no reason to be again. The things that happened to him weren't fair.

But Jim was a rational man. He knew he could do Nick a lot more good by keeping on Crane at the station than hovering around the hospital corridors, where he was probably asleep anyway.

Jim sighed, his hand slowly inching towards the phone. He wanted to call one of the others, see how Nick was doing, and tell them he was on his way. But he couldn't get their hopes up by letting them see his name on the caller ID without having any information to offer. He couldn't do that to them.

He pulled his hand back and rubbed his face. He felt like he hadn't slept in weeks.

"Detective Brass?"

Jim looked up, squinting slightly after rubbing his eyes so hard. "Yeah?"

It was a newer officer, one whose name he couldn't immediately place, shifting his weight uncomfortably in the doorway. "He, uh, he says he's ready to talk."

Jim's frown deepened. It seemed to now be permanently affixed to his face. "Just like that?"

The officer shrugged and cracked an uneasy smile. "Guy's got more than one screw loose."

You can say that again. Jim nodded. "Okay, I'll be right there."

He hesitated, wanting to go to the holding room where Crane was and hear what he had to say, maybe try to understand what was going on in his head. But, on the other hand, he didn't want to hear what Crane had to say. He wasn't sure it was actually going to help him understand. He would never understand.

Nigel fidgeted. He couldn't remember handcuffs being this uncomfortable; he was losing the feeling in his hands. He wiggled his fingers, eliciting a cool tingle throughout the digits. At the same time, he was very much aware that no one around him cared about any discomfort he was experiencing.

He didn't know what they wanted him to say. They wouldn't understand, would never understand. Nigel had simply tried to do what Doctor Kendall had been telling him he needed to: purge, get it out of his system. He should have just shot Nick a week ago and gotten it over with, but something had stopped him. He wasn't sure what, but it had saved Nick and condemned himself at the same time. The whole ordeal had been overly dramatic and drawn out, and rather boring.

And after all of that, he didn't feel any better. He would have thought, or at least hoped, that he would feel something different about himself. Something better about himself. But no, he was still just so angry, all the time, at everyone. He wasn't really sure the specifics of the origin of the anger he was constantly plagued with, but Nigel did know it had something to do with Nick.

Just thinking about the man made him angry. That wasn't how it had been when they met. Nigel remembered that Nick had been nice, much nicer than most of the jackasses he'd installed for. They rest just stood there, staring and bothering and rushing him; or ignoring him altogether. But Nick had sat in the room and chatted easily with him like they were old friends. That was the kind of person he was, Nigel thought in disgust.

But he didn't follow through on it. Those people he worked with, were they really so much better than he was? What did they do to deserve to be recognized and treated like friends that he didn't?

And why did he think he was so much better than everyone else?

Those were the questions Nigel had gone into the hospital with. He supposed he came up with answers. Those people were not better than he was. They didn't do anything to deserve to be treated like that, except for the fact they treated Nick better than he deserved.

When Nigel thought about it, and that was most of the time, he thought maybe it was really about him all along, and not Nick. And feeling like he wasn't as important as other people. That was what Doctor Kendall suggested, anyway. That he needed to figure out what it was about himself that he just didn't connect with people on a socially acceptable level, and deal with it. Problem was that Nigel had never really known who he was as a person. He never thought about himself like that. He looked at himself and his status based on the people that he was surrounded with, or more accurately, surrounded himself with.

So, logically, to "deal with it," he needed to stop doing that. And who was the last person he'd really been around?

Nick. That was the problem that he had to eliminate.

This is what he tried to explain to the grim-faced detective seated across from him – he wasn't "crazy," he was just trying to follow through on the therapy Doctor Kendall had suggested would work for him. That he was trying to find himself underneath all of the other people he'd associated with his entire life.

He found out he was much more aggressive than he had ever thought. And angry. Very angry.

"And you directed that anger towards Nick?" the detective asked with a shake of his head, looking disgusted.

"I didn't have to," Nigel answered, leaning forward.

There were immediately officers moving forward with him to pull him back until his back was once again pressed against the chair. He guessed he couldn't blame the man for wanting to keep his distance.

The detective also didn't answer, but seemed to be sitting and stewing in his own growing anger. "You're not going back to that hospital," he said finally. "You're going to prison."

Nigel nodded. "I know."

"Was it worth it?"

Nigel cocked his head, and tried to stretch out his numbing fingers. "Don't know yet. How's Nick?" He couldn't help but smirk.

It perhaps wasn't the smartest thing to say, as the pudgy detective didn't see the humor, and Nigel was momentarily concerned that the two officers wouldn't be able to keep the angry man off of him.

The other man took a deep breath, and stared Nigel down with those hard eyes of his. Nigel didn't so much as flinch.

"He's gonna be good as new," Brass said as firmly as he could, but Nigel detected the crack in his voice.

"I doubt it," Nigel said softly.

To be continued...