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Chapter 9: The Unthinkable
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It was midnight, but Grissom didn't hear the bells chime twelve. He didn't see the stars glimmer in a sky as black as pitch. He didn't hear the cheers of the crowd as they 'oohed' and 'aahed' at the light show overhead on Freemont Street. All his attention was focused on what was happening on the other side of the operating doors as he and the rest of the team looked on through the inch-thick glass window.
Grissom pressed himself against the glass, praying for the first time in years to the God of his childhood for mercy. He watched helplessly as they pumped her chest, trying to reverse the flat-line on the monitor. He counted the compressions… matched breath for breath the air that invaded her lungs with every pump of the respirator. When CPR proved useless, the paddles came out. The group grimaced each time they saw her limp body jump with electric shock. Even Catherine was close to tears, regardless of the fact that the women had never had a great relationship.
Finally, the surgeon took off his mask and met the small crowd in the hallway, an apologetic look on his face.
"I'm sorry," he began, but Nick cut him off.
"Don't say you're sorry, just get back in there and do your job!"
"I'm afraid there's nothing else we can do… I don't know what went wrong. It should've been a simple procedure."
This time, Warrick stepped up. "Well, then you can bet your ass that we'll ask our coroner to do an autopsy, and when he tells us what happened we'll be back here suing you ass for malpractice!"
"Warrick!" Catherine turned. "We're all upset, okay?"
Grissom, however, said nothing. His eyes had yet to leave Sara. As he watched helplessly while the other doctors began to clean and put away their instruments, one thought kept making its way through his brain: it isn't possible… Suddenly, the ring in his breast pocket felt like an anchor weighing him to the ocean floor. At that point, he couldn't stand to stare at her limp and lifeless body any longer. He wanted to get out, to leave this building and everything in it behind like a bad memory, but he knew that he couldn't. Not even one of his experiments would pull him from the torrential whirlpool that had just devoured him. He turned his back on the scene and slid down the wall until he hit the floor, knees pulled to his chest, and put his head in his hands. How could this have happened?
As the doctor made his apologies once more, the group tuned him out and turned to their broken brother. Catherine plopped down beside him on the floor and laid her head on his shoulder, suddenly unable to hold it up on her own. Nick squatted on Grissom's other side with tears making wet trails down his cheeks, while Warrick knelt beside Catherine. His normally bright green eyes were dark with sorrow as he placed one hand on her shoulder and the other on Grissom's knee. Greg simply stood by Nick in shock and despair.
Suddenly there was the sound of running footsteps and huffs of breath. The team looked up to see Brass running toward them.
"I came as soon as I heard," he called. "How is she?"
Their expressions spoke louder than words, the loss palpable.
Brass's face contorted as his fears became reality. "Oh God, no…" Turning to the doctor, the news was confirmed and the team watched as the usually unbreakable detective deflated with grief, one of the only times they'd seen him cry.
Seeing that there was nothing else that he could do to minimize their pain, the doctor turned to leave. He had almost made it to the swinging operation room doors when the air was suddenly filled with an unearthly screeching. It didn't take long for the entire entourage to realize that the heart monitor in the OR was going mad. The CSIs leapt from their anguished stances and plastered their faces against the glass, staring at the green line zigzag out of control. Hope flourished once more as they watched the doctors scramble.
Their eyes were torn from the scene as one of the doctors burst through the operation room door and called to the surgeon:
"It was a clot! We need you to help stabilize!"
The surgeon hesitated for a millisecond, as if trying to figure out how such a thing could've happened on his table. Warrick caught his pause and didn't hesitate to speak his mind.
"Well, what the hell are you doing? Get your ass back in there!"
The surgeon did just that, and without a second thought, he closed the curtains over the window, blocking the team's view of what was going on and leaving them in suspense and trepidation.
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For the next hour, they sat in the waiting room, where they had been escorted by a heavyset nurse with no time or patience to spare. The wait proved agonizing. Brass sat on the end of a row of hard plastic seats, tracing the lines of his badge while staring at the others in turn… He always felt like a father figure in his role as cop - protector of the innocent and all that jazz – and while they each played their own special part in that world, Sara had always been like a daughter. One with authority issues and a severe discipline problem, but a daughter nonetheless. While he wasn't one to stick his nose into other people's personal lives unless it was on a case, he could only imagine what she had been to those who knew her best. Looking from face to face, he saw the grief, the confusion, and the hope mingled to form all the unanswered whys.
Catherine lay across three of the seats, her head in Warrick's lap, her body aching with apprehension. Warrick moved his fingers through her hair in a fluid motion that was somewhat calming to them both, and might have proved romantic in sentiment had they not been worried for Sara's life. Nick sat beside his best friend, reflecting on his many years on the team and his few on the force, wondering if they would ever be the same. Greg simply sat cross-legged on the cold tile floor near their feet, looking for all the world like a heartbroken child seeking comfort from his family.
Then, Brass looked to Grissom. Ever the loner, the leader of the geek squad sat in the corner in the only stand-alone chair in the room, staring into space as if he could find the answers there. Leaning forward with elbows resting on his knees, his characteristically emotion-free features betrayed a suffering and broken spirited man with sorrow, uncertainty, and fear swimming behind watery eyes. He was losing more than a friend… He was losing a dream.
The time was passed in silence, the only sound being the occasional sniffle from one of the members blending with the background noise of a hospital waiting room. The tension could be cut with a knife…
Or maybe a scalpel. After what seemed like an eternity, the team finally looked up to see the surgeon coming their way. They stood to meet him.
"She's stable and in a private room," he informed them. A sigh of relief broke loose like a wave upon the shore. "We'll go back in and fix her knee whenever she's ready. We've closed it back up for now, but what we think happened was-"
"You think?" Nick repeated.
The doctor sighed. "What happened was when we cut the circulation off to her leg during surgery, a clot formed. It detached from its place in the vein and made its way to her heart, causing her to go into cardiac arrest, and ultimately her heart stopped. Life saving efforts failed and she was officially declared dead at 12:04 am… We're not quite sure how she revived. By all means, she was and should still be dead. But, she's alive and well… and asking for a Gil Grissom."
All eyes turned to their no-so-fearless leader and watched as he looked at each of them in turn, as if asking their permission. They sent him ahead with messages and hugs for their sister in need, and took their seats, once again settling themselves in for a long wait.
A/N: Thank you so much to those of you who kept our faith in me! I normally don't believe in character death, but I felt the need to write this chapter. As many of you know, I wear many different hats as an author, and lately the grammar nazi and description junkie have been riding my back! Hence the limited dialogue. This chapter took so much time and energy... I feel like I poured myself into this. Please tell me what you think!
forbesn: She's my favorite, too. I couldn't really kill her even if I wanted to. This is the closest it'll EVER come to that.
Anonymous Skeleton: She lives! I promise!
All: Beginning with the conversation with Catherine on the phone in the previous chapter and ending with the curtain being closed on the operation, the first section of this chapter can be read to the "Song for Olabi" from the CSI: Soundtrack if read slowly. Certain parts of the song will match to certain parts of the story. (i.e. the beginning of the maraccas to the compressions on Sara's chest, the whisperings with Brass's entrance, and the woman singing to the "unearthly screaching" of the heart monitor.) Enjoy!
Teaser: "What do you mean I died'?" she said, her voice wavering.
"Just that," he answered, unable to say anything else about the horrific experience.
"But I could feel you there..." she whispered. "You were there, weren't you?"
He took her hand in his own. "I stood outside that window the entire time, ... and I thought I'd lost you... I can't go through that again, Sara." He reached for his breast pocket. ...