A/N: More encouraging reviews! Thanks to all, and apologies for not responding to each one personally. Just 'cause I don't Which would you rather have me do -- answer reviews or write more chapters::grin:

Thanks mucho to Maekala for beta work.

Chapter Fourteen

Thursday Night

Grissom closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. His headache hadn't eased since Garza's interrogation. He'd tried to distract his thoughts from the implicit accusations by turning on the television to one of the 24-hour cable news channels, but the drone of the commentator's voice had done nothing but set his teeth on edge. He ached with frustrated tension made worse by his inability to do anything about it.

He flinched at a light tap that told him he was no longer alone, and that he had failed to notice. He turned his head and saw Catherine standing by the wall partitioning the bathroom and closet from the rest of the room. She was smiling, but the smile seemed a bit tenuous and she looked like she was fighting tears.

"Catherine?"

She moved closer until she stood next to the bed, close enough to reach out and clasp the hand suspended in mid-air above his face. A breathy laugh escaped her lips at the same time a single tear dripped down her cheek. "Damn, it's good to see you!" she said shakily. "You had us all scared out of our wits, you know."

"I'm sorry," he said. The warm fingers wrapped around his were oddly comforting. Her thumb brushed lightly over the raw, red patches that were a reminder of his unsuccessful attempt to disarm Dan Stevens, and her other hand ghosted over a tender spot on his left cheek.

"It's a little late in your life to take up bare-knuckle boxing, isn't it?" she asked with a weak attempt at humor.

He answered her with a faint, wry smile. "I guess it is," he conceded.

"I know it's almost the end of visiting hours, and I would have been here sooner," Catherine said, "but I couldn't get past IA's watchdogs till Garza got your statement. Then I had to check on Lindsey, make sure she ate a good dinner. She heard about missing CSIs and this big, dramatic rescue and everything on the news, and of course I wasn't home this morning when she left for school, so she was pretty worried. I figured I'd just…"

"Stop," Grissom commanded. When she did, and looked at him with wide, startled eyes, he added in a softer voice, "You're babbling."

"Yeah, I guess I am," she admitted with a self-deprecating twist of her lips. "Bad habit. I know you hate it." She released his hand, turning to drag the visitor's chair close to the bed and sit down, her hands now clasped around her knees. "So…how are you feeling? Aside from the headache."

She knew him too well. His eyes closed briefly and he hitched the blanket up a little higher on his chest. He answered with a tiny shrug and a simple, "I'll live."

"I'd be willing to bet Garza's visit didn't help," she ventured, her voice taking on a slight edge. "That guy's a bigger jackass than Ecklie – who, by the way, seems only too happy he's been asked to review all the forensic evidence on this investigation."

Grissom refrained from comment, and Catherine's indignation flared. "Doesn't it piss you off," she demanded, "that he could even suggest you or Nick were in league with Stevens?"

"Of course it does," he admitted, but his chief concern at the moment wasn't the overzealous IA captain. "Have you been able to see Nick yet?" he asked.

Catherine shook her head regretfully. "No. Same problem – Garza doesn't want his statement influenced by anything one of us might say to him. Why?"

"Something Garza said," Grissom explained. "He insinuated that Nick wasn't doing too well. I asked one of the nurses to see if she could find out anything, but…" He left the thought hanging, unwilling to admit that he was both disappointed and a little angry that Angie hadn't gotten the answers he wanted before her shift ended and she went home to her family.

Catherine gave a slow nod as she leaned forward and again placed her hand over his. "I did get a chance to talk to his doctor," she said. "He's going to be fine, Gil. They're just a being a little cautious right now."

"Cautious about what?"

"Well, for one thing, he's got a pretty nasty infection from that wound in his leg. But they're giving him some high-powered antibiotics, so they expect that to clear up fairly soon."

She paused, and Grissom's hand tightened against hers. "You said 'for one thing,'" he prompted. "What else?"

Catherine took a breath before she went on, "He broke a couple of ribs and his collarbone. Warrick said he'd been trying to dig you guys out, and that…well, he kinda made things worse. The ribs shifting around bruised his lung, almost caused it to collapse. They operated to put his collarbone back together, and between the infection and everything else, they decided it was a good idea to keep him pretty heavily sedated for a while -- till his fever's down and he's not hurting quite so bad."

Grissom's eyes closed wearily. "'I banged up my shoulder some,'" he murmured, his voice pained. "That's what he told me, Catherine. I should have realized…"

"Hey," she said quickly, "don't blame yourself." She squeezed his hand again and lightly chafed his wrist. "I told you, he'll be fine. Both of you will be. And it's not like you were in any position to stop him," she added pointedly.

That much was true, he acknowledged silently. But it didn't make him feel any better.

Grissom gripped her hand with sudden intensity. "You have to try to talk to Nick before Garza gets hold of him," he said. "Garza's a shark. He'll be pressing for answers as soon as he can – probably before Nick is clear-headed enough to deal with him."

"Slow down, Gil," Catherine said, punctuating her words with a sly smile. "Warrick thinks he can get past the gate-keepers. He's working on it right now."

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Even though most of the visitors had now gone home and most of the hospital staff had shifted into their night-time "wait and watch" mode, the level of vigilance was slightly higher on the 3rd floor. The patients here, while not requiring the constant monitoring of the ICU, still needed more frequent attention. The duty nurses moved briskly from room to room, administering scheduled medications, recording vital signs, alert for any indication that a crisis might be brewing in one of the quiet, dimly lit rooms.

Warrick Brown had timed his arrival carefully, late enough to avoid the risk of encountering one of the IA investigators and during the time when an old college buddy, who was also an LVPD patrol officer, was on guard outside Nick's door. Darren Watson wasn't a close friend, but his path and Warrick's crossed often enough at crime scenes that they had never completely lost touch. Warrick considered it a stroke of purest luck that Darren had ended up tagged by Captain Garza for this particular assignment.

He approached his friend now, his movements intentionally slow, his expression one of worry that wasn't entirely feigned. At the sound of Warrick's plodding steps, Darren stood up from the plain, molded plastic chair in which he'd been sitting.

"Hey, Warrick," he said, his tone muted in deference to their surroundings. His expression was somber. "How ya doin', man?"

Warrick exhaled a long sigh and shook his head. "It's been a hell of a day, D.," he replied, projecting what he hoped was a convincing air of disappointment. "Can't say I'm glad to see you here. I was hoping Garza would have already had his little chat with my boy Nicky, so I could poke my head in and say hello." He ran a hand over his face and around to massage the back of his neck. "Damn," he murmured. "Poor guy's probably going nuts, wondering why none of his friends has been around, thinking we're all off catching up on our sleep while he's lying there all banged up and feeling like crap…"

Darren Watson huffed a humorless laugh. "Man, you can still lay on the b.s. with a trowel, can't you, 'Rick?" he asked rhetorically.

"No b.s.," Warrick countered, all innocence.

"Uh-huh." Darren smirked and crossed his arms over his chest. "So you're not gonna stand there and try to talk me into ignoring a direct order from an IA captain and let you through that door?"

Warrick assumed a look of mild contrition. "Yeah, I know, it's a lot to ask. But you know this whole IA thing is bull. I mean, come on. You've met Nick. He's a stand-up guy."

"Yeah." Darren rocked back on his heels and leaned into the wall behind him. He chewed the inside of his cheek and stared down at the floor. "Garza's a prick, that's for sure. But he could screw me over big-time if he wanted to." He glanced up sideways at Warrick. "I took the exam to become a detective last month. Next space that opens up is mine if I want it – and if there's no reprimands logged in my jacket. Ya know?"

"That's great, D.," Warrick said sincerely, reaching out to clap his friend's shoulder. He hadn't realized Darren was up for a detective slot. "Congrats, man. I mean it."

"Thanks." Darren straightened abruptly and stretched his arms, shooting back the cuff of his uniform shirt sleeve to glance at his watch. "I need some coffee," he announced. "Visiting hours ended thirty seconds ago, so no one's gonna be coming around now. I think I'll wander down there to the nurse's station, see if they've got a pot going." He walked away without saying anything else, leaving the door unguarded.

Warrick slipped inside the room before Darren had a chance to change his mind. The space was smaller than a standard hospital room, not intended for long-term use or for more than one or two visitors at a time. Warrick paused a moment before he crossed the three long steps to the bed where Nick lay, apparently asleep.

With his face washed clean of the dirt and dried blood that had covered it when Warrick found him, Nick looked even paler than he had against the grey stone of the mine. Only the neatly sutured gash on his forehead and the bruised-looking half-moons below his closed eyes lent any color to his face. His lips were slightly parted, the upper one swollen and also marked with tiny stitches, and Warrick could hear the faint hiss of his breathing. Wires connecting to a multi-purpose monitor snaked out from beneath the thin cotton hospital gown draped loosely over Nick's chest. The audible output had been muted, but Warrick watched the steady progression of the green LED tracery across the screen. The pattern was reassuringly steady even if still somewhat faster than normal. A blood pressure cuff around Nick's left arm inflated automatically at pre-set intervals. The most recent reading, still displayed on the monitor face, was an encouraging 105/70, a considerable improvement over what the paramedics had recorded at the time of his rescue. An IV ran into the same arm, and his forefinger sported a pulse-oximeter clip.

"Nicky…Nicky," Warrick said wearily. His memory superimposed an image from two years earlier, when Nick had been tossed out a second-floor window, onto the present view of his friend looking even more battered than he had then. "You gotta quit doing this, man."

Warrick's attention sharpened when Nick's breathing changed and the hand resting across his stomach twitched. Beneath the sheet and blanket, his legs moved restlessly, eliciting a small pained sound. Warrick placed a light hand on his uninjured shoulder.

"Take it easy, Nick," he said soothingly. "You're gonna hurt yourself if you move around too much."

Nick's eyes opened a slit and his head turned slightly in response to Warrick's voice. His brows furrowed as he visibly struggled against the drugs coursing through his system to focus on the shape beside him. "'Rick?" he queried in a soft, rasping whisper.

"Yeah, man, I'm here," Warrick confirmed, leaning a little closer. "Didn't mean to wake you up," he added. "I gotta tell you, man, you need your beauty sleep."

Nick's hand lifted a few inches to wave away the apology and the feeble joke. "'S okay." His words were slurred like a drunk's, and Warrick had to strain to hear. "Been 'sleep…hours…"

"There's a reason for that," Warrick told him, relieved that his friend seemed reasonably coherent despite his drugged state, and considerably less feverish than he had when he was carried from the mine.

"Yeah," Nick agreed with the barest hint of humor. "Drugs. Good…drugs…"

Warrick breathed a small laugh and patted his friend's arm. "I just bet they are."

Nick frowned suddenly, and he fixed a still slightly wavering gaze on Warrick. "Grissom?" he asked. "'S okay?"

"He'll be fine," Warrick assured him. "Don't you worry about Gris."

"'S'good…" Nick's eyes closed, whether with relief or because the drugs had for the moment gotten the upper hand Warrick wasn't sure. He hadn't drifted off, though, because his frown deepened as he tried without success to lift his right arm. Even that small movement dislodged the gown enough for Warrick to see that a soft Velcro band encircled his upper arm and tethered it to a wider strap around his chest. A thick bandage covered the incision where the doctor had opened his shoulder to piece together the shattered collarbone. A faint moan spoke of his discomfort.

"Nick, be still," Warrick ordered, his tone firmer, and was relieved when Nick obeyed the command and even managed to peel his eyelids apart again. "Listen to me, Nick," he went on. "I gotta make this quick. I'm not even supposed to be here."

Nick blinked slowly, and he lifted his head a scant few inches, as if the urgency in Warrick's voice compelled a response.

"Sometime soon, maybe tomorrow, IA's gonna come talk to you," Warrick warned. "Stevens died in that cave-in, and Garza's got it in his head that maybe you or Grissom, or both, were helping him hide that two mil."

"Wha…?" That caught Nick's attention, and he tried to sit up further, prevented from doing so by Warrick's restraining hand. "'s'crazy," he protested, his voice rising slightly in surprise as his head flopped back down on the pillow.

Warrick briefly tightened his grip on Nick's good arm, hoping to reassure him. "I know it is," he agreed. "Nobody who knows you guys believes it for a minute. But Garza's not gonna back down just 'cause somebody else says he's way off base. You gotta be ready for him, man, and don't let him get to you. Can you do that, Nicky?"

Nick nodded. "…keep m' cool," he promised.

Warrick looked up in mild alarm when the door opened. Darren Watson stuck his head and one arm inside and gestured urgently. "The nurse is just two rooms down," he said. "You gotta get out of here."

"Thanks," Warrick said. He returned his attention to Nick. "Go back to sleep," he said quietly. "You're gonna need your strength tomorrow." With a last quick pat on the arm, he left the room, not at all sure that when confronted with Garza and his accusations, Nick would be able to keep his promise.

To be continued…