Title: Race Among the Ruins
Author: Cropper
Pairing: GSR
Rating: Mature for Profanity
Disclaimer: Sadly, the characters herein are not mine. I promise to play nice and return them when I am done.
A/N: Thank you, csipal, ligaras and Lord Betamort. I appreciate all of your diligent efforts.
Summary: Too little sleep and too much sleet.
Chapter Four
Grissom slowly surfaced, returning to the land of the living most reluctantly. He had been blissfully content in the realm of enforced darkness, a warm cocoon as caressingly comforting as his childhood pillow. He had hoped that it had all been a dream, a nightmare brought about by too little sleep, and that he would roll over to find the utterly tacky décor of the roadside motel waiting to greet him like a new found friend. Alas, this was not meant to be. The crashing waves of agony beginning to undulate throughout his battered body laughingly reassured him that his downfall was all too real.
He attempted to assess his current condition and immediately realized that he was in trouble. His left arm and hand were tightly wedged between the driver's door and steering wheel and his chest felt as if it had been crushed in a giant vice. The air bag had failed to deploy and at some point on Mr. Toad's wild ride down the mountain, he had been slammed relentlessly into the steering column. He could taste the bitter metallic tincture of blood in his mouth but did not know if he had simply bitten his tongue or if the copper residue spoke of injuries more serious than he cared to contemplate. Both of his legs were hopelessly pinned. The dash had crumpled like an aluminum soda can and the front end of the tiny car had caved in upon itself. Grissom knew that he was not going anywhere on his own; he was trapped. Rounding out his misery was a headache worse than any migraine he had ever suffered. His close-cropped curls felt sticky and wet and from he could tell he had slammed his head against the B pillar when the hapless seat belt had snapped free from its mooring. He needed help and he needed it fast. The sleet had turned back to rain but that was little consolation. The weather was still bitingly frigid and the mangled vehicle provided little shelter from the storm.
As Grissom battled to adjust to the physical torment waxing and waning with each shuddering breath, a thought scuttled through his tortured mind. He knew that he was supposed to do something important, had sworn an oath to call someone if he needed help. Who? Who had cared enough to exact a promise of such magnitude?
Phone...where was his phone? Grissom had a vague, wispy memory of stuffing his cell and reading glasses in the pocket of his navy windbreaker. A quick glance down at the claret spatters freckling the front of his shirt served as a reminder that he had shed the damp article when settling in for the long drive home. He forced his weakened gaze around the murky interior of the vehicle in a desperate search for the missing jacket. The haziness fogging his mind hampered his quest but he finally caught a glimpse of the desired item resting in the footwell beneath the passenger seat. He groped over and down with a shaky right had but could not get so much as a finger nail on the elusive nylon garment. Salvation was just beyond his grasp, as it had always been, a recurring rhythm of his life.
Grissom lunged and strained, unable to free his left arm from the tenacious grip of the steering wheel. He had to get his jacket, he had to get his phone, he was supposed to call someone, he promised to call someone. He was completely consumed by this repeated mental chant and his movements grew more frantic and aggressive as the volume in his mind intensified. Jacket, phone, call, promise. Jacket, phone, call, promise. The tempo was unrelenting, unappeasable. Finally, with a gut-wrenching lurch, the joint in his left shoulder ceded to his single-minded effort with a sickening gristle-snapping pop. He had savagely torn the ball from its nestling socket but had miraculously gained just enough movement to allow him to pinch his index and middle finger to the collar of the coat and haul it to what little lap he had available.
Fuck, that hurt, Grissom thought as he waited, panting, to adjust to this new fireball of pain whistling through his frame. He was accustomed to abuse; physical punishment was no stranger, but his mind was still so very cloudy. What was he supposed to do? He was supposed to call someone. He had promised to call someone. Why could he not figure this out? He needed to concentrate. The answer was there, lurking just beyond the confusion. He needed to solve this riddle. His life, it seemed, depended on him finding the answer. Who? Who was he supposed to call? He had made a promise and he would not fail. Who would he have done something like that for? He powered up the phone and Sara's name danced across the dimly illuminated screen. Sara? That's it. He was supposed to call Sara. Sara was the only person to whom he would make such a promise.
Sara was absorbed in her work, one part of her mind firmly adhered to the evidence, the other growing steadily apprehensive as her efforts to contact her boss went unrewarded. She was so startled when her cell phone rang that she nearly knocked it off the table in her haste to grab the instrument and check the Caller ID. Yes! Finally!
"Grissom!" Sara yelled scathingly into her phone. "Where the hell are you? You should have been here hours ago."
Silence greeted her tirade. All Sara could hear was Grissom's labored breathing panting in her ear. Her eyes widened as she realized that something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong and Grissom was in trouble.
"Grissom?" she queried a little more cautiously.
""Hi." Sara could easily detect the confusion and pain in his voice. She purposefully couched her mounting concern into a cheerful, conversational tone.
"Hey," she resumed brightly. "There you are. What's up?"
"Nothing." Grissom's response was little more than a whisper.
"Where are you, Gris?"
"Huh?"
"Where are you?"
"Don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know? Did you pull off for a little nap? Did you conveniently forget that you promised to call?" she scolded.
"No."
Despite her intentions to keep things light, Sara's was unable to fully hide her frustration. Attempting to carry on a conversation with Grissom could often be as painful as a root canal under optimal conditions and the current exchange was passing into full fledged wisdom tooth extraction. "Come on, Mr. Monosyllabic. Help me out here. What's going on?"
Grissom huffed a bit before carefully responding, "Don't...nag. Not wife...yet."
Sara eyes widened and her eyebrows soared in shock. Okay, either Grissom was really out of it or... She did not have time to ride that train of thought as Gris puffed out another one-word grunt.
"Car."
She gave her head a single shake to stop the reeling. "You're in the car. Where's the car?"
"Trees."
"Trees?"
Catherine and Warrick had been listening to Sara's half of the conversation with growing amusement. They were unaware of the gravity foundering on the other end of the air waves and as far as they were concerned it sounded as if Sara was attempting to interrogate an uncooperative wino witness in the drunk tank. The fact that Grissom was the "wino" merely added to the hilarity.
"Wreck," Grissom managed to state bluntly. "Accident."
"You were in an accident? Are you hurt?" Sara's alto began screeching into the mezzo-soprano range as terror gripped the walls of her abdomen.
"Mmmhmm."
"Shit!" Sara barked. This was not good. This was so not good. The grins flirting with Warrick and Catherine quickly morphed to expressions of surprise and concern. They stood and diverted their complete attention to Sara and the injured man to whom she was interrogating.
"Grissom? Where does it hurt?"
"Don't know," he moaned. Talking was growing more difficult with each passing moment.
"Can you be just a little more specific, Babe?"
'Babe?' The unintentional endearment fleetingly registered as Grissom battled his incessantly increasing pain in an effort to communicate.
"Left arm...Chest...Legs...Head...Enough?"
Oh, yeah. That was more than enough. She did not want to ask but overwhelming concern compelled her to continue. "Is there more?"
"Don't know. Pinned. Trapped. Need you, Sara."
"Gris, do you know where you are?"
A long pause ensued before Grissom replied with a simple, defeated, "no."
"What's the last thing you remember?"
"Umm...sleet. Concen...concentrating on road."
"Is that why you turned your cell off? So you wouldn't be distracted?"
An affirmative grunt was all Grissom could manage before stammering in a panicked voice, "Need you...Don't...Think...Sick."
"Grissom," Sara began before the unmistakable sound of retching filled her ear. A head injury accompanied by vomiting was not good. She needed to do something fast. To distract both herself and Grissom from his current illness, Sara continued talking as she briskly made her way to the AV Lab. "Gris? I want you to keep the line open. You can stop talking but please don't end the call. I am going to take my phone to Archie so he can work his kung fu voodoo magic and tell us where to kind you. Okay?"
Grissom's acknowledgment was barely discernible. "Kay."
"Hang in there, baby. I'm coming to get you."
Something dark and feral leapt fiercely within Grissom's soul. Sara had once again slipped and her offhand use of the term "Baby" sent him spiraling backwards to another place and time, a very unhappy and woefully ugly place and time.
"I'm...not...a...baby." Each word was harshly ground through gritted teeth. The effort to finish the age-old incantation was pulling him back under. "I'm...a...big...boy...now."
Sara stared at the phone in her hand as if it were a deadly cobra poised to strike. What had just happened? What the hell was Grissom talking about? A big boy now? Oh, there was a nice juicy story lurking just below the surface, of that Sara had no doubt. Gris was hauling around some seriously wicked baggage and dancing skeletons were starting to emerge from the dark. The man must have cracked his thick skull harder than he was willing to admit if he allowed something that intensely personal slip through the cracks. Her concern for Grissom's well-being cranked another notch higher but Sara was having a hard time pushing back her raging curiosity. This was neither the time nor the place to go around rattling the doorknobs of Grissom's locked closets. She desperately needed to keep him calm, to keep him with her. She needed her baby and was not about to let him go without one hellacious fight. The "big boy" would have to wait.
To Be Continued...