Beyond the busy strip of Vegas, the neon lights, noise of slot machines, and the sleazy underbelly of naked flesh that taunted at every corner, miles away lay desert dunes; particles of sand that slowly eroded the earth. It was this dust that would remain long after the newest luxury hotel or multimillion dollar resort. Every tourist knew about money and dirt, but it wasn't until you lived here a while that you learned about the hidden oasis nestled just past Lake Mead. Quiet hills, fresh air, and wooded areas that made all the hustle and bustle a distant memory.

The SUV had been parked about one mile away, a light knapsack rested on each man's back, bottle of water shared between them. It was still early morning, a slight chill was in the air, but it promised to be sunny. This was just a day trip; the hikers carried only a couple of sketchbooks, two pairs of binoculars, and each of them had a digital camera and the eagerness to explore.

Nick led the way with the older man slightly behind him. Grissom peered at his handbook, flipping through several pages and then pointed excitedly. "I say that's a Palm Warbler."

Nick's long strides brought him right next to his supervisor, binoculars over his eyes, adjusting the focus of the lens. "No way, Man. Palm Warblers are rare in Nevada; I've never seen one ever in the past few years." Even though the odds were against such a discovery, the young man hoped it was true. He searched for just the right markings on the bird.

Disappointed, he let the heavy device sag to his chest, moving the strap around his neck. He shook his head. "Nah, wrong color."

Grissom scrunched up his face, the light breeze making his jacket flutter. "No, it's just like the picture," he said pointing to his trusty guidebook.

Nick smiled and took a moment to stretch stiff muscles; a now familiar deep ache plagued him. He bit his lip annoyed. He'd even put a heating pad on it last night in hopes that it wouldn't flare up on this outing.

Grissom noted his discomfort. "Want to head back?"

Nick shook his head and instead took off his hat to mess with his new cut hair and slapped it back down on his head. "No. I'm fine, we planned this weeks ago, and I'm going stir crazy rehabbing at home."

Grissom arched an eyebrow and said nothing; the obvious change was a relief. Nick looked at his watch. "If we hurry, we can get to one of my favorite spots, under this cool old tree. Lot of different type of hawks over there. I might be able to add a drawing."

The supervisor wiped at the perspiration that dotted his forehead. "I think we shouldn't venture any further, plus I know that's a Palm Warbler. I just double-checked the guide."

Nick didn't know whether to laugh or be offended. "Um, Gris. I know what they look like and I'm telling' ya. You're wrong."

"I've studied the markings, Nick. Did you take a look at its neck?"

He blinked, slightly confused and lifted the binoculars to his eyes even though he knew that his boss was wrong. This was the man's first bird watching trip and was already challenging him over a species of bird that he'd kill to be able to add to his book. Something told him to double-check and yep, it was still a normal looking sparrow.

"It's not a Palm. Not even close." Nick squinted as the sun began to come up.

Grissom sighed and looked at the younger man slightly annoyed. "Are we going to begin arguing again?"

Nick gawked at him. "Man, I'm not starting a fight, but you're wrong.
You're an expert on bugs, I know my birds."

"Nicky."

There it was- that tone again, and he began to rub at the painful spot on his back; the throbbing had gotten worse and now it began to sear his muscles.

"I told you we should be heading back. You know better than to push yourself too hard," Grissom was reprimanding him as he turned his back and began walking away.

Nick felt his jaw clench. "I'm fine." Though the pain was now almost unbearable and his legs began to buckle under his weight.

"Hey, wait," he said as he moved one foot forward and collapsed to the ground, his whole back in agony.

Grissom walked over and knelt in front of him. "Are you really fine, Nick?"

He felt tears slide down his face and a white hot poker twist in his spine. "Yeah," he croaked even though he knew he wasn't...far from it.

His supervisor pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Well then, I'll just write down we found that Palm Warbler, since we're both being so honest."

He didn't say anything, didn't utter a single word as Grissom scribbled away in the book and began following the trail back to the car. "I'm a terrible teacher, Nick," he said, never looking back.

Nick wanted to ask for help, his hand weakly seeking out the other man, but his words were lost in the garble and gasping for breath.

"Griss'mm," he slurred, a bright light over his head, a flurry of hands prodding and touching him.

He groaned when he was rolled to his side, a litany of voices, questions and orders floated all around him. An oxygen mask had replaced the tubes delivering him O2, his voice obscured by the heavy plastic. Nick shivered; a mere sheet covered him from the waist down, and his need to vomit was overwhelming.

"We need a cross panel and CBC. Get a portable ultrasound in here."

He felt his arm get squeezed tightly by something he couldn't identify. He turned his heavy head weakly, blinking confusedly. Arms and hands swam in and out of view; a rapid beeping noise assailed his ears from behind him somewhere. Nick's sounds of discomfort brought a lady in front of his face, her expression somewhat blurry with all the brightness around him.

"Mr. Stokes, please try to relax. We're running some tests on you and giving you some medication that will make you feel better."

Nick sucked in another painful breath, shaking his head.

"Latest set of vitals?" a man's voice demanded from the left of him, a freezing metal object now resting on his chest that moved several more times, each new sensation making him even colder.

"Heart rate 140, BP 180 over 120, resps 88 percent on full O2," a foreign accented voice replied.

Voices all around, four people, no five? Nick didn't understand what was going on, but he knew he didn't want any part of it.

"I need that CBC! I want to know his exact red blood count. His hemoglobin and hematocrit have got to be down the tubes. Why the hell did they let this guy bleed out for so long?"

People talking all around him like he wasn't even there. Again!

Nick tried to move in any direction, but felt things burn, and pinch and pull. His head dropped down, panting into the mask, a hand on his shoulder pressed down on him.

"Soon you'll feel very warm, Mr. Stokes. Please remain still," the same heavily accented voice told him.

Try staying put when strange things were inserted where they didn't belong, he wanted to bark back, but all that came out were garbled moans.

A man with a beard and dark hair leaned over his line of sight, not that he had a clear view of anything except white hot light and blurry images of people. Something about the way the guy loomed over him made his breath hitch in his throat.

"We're going to do an ultrasound. You might feel something funny, but it's just the jelly. Once the morphine kicks in just let yourself relax." The man shifted away his voice booming again. "You get those meds on board yet?"

Nick felt himself hyperventilating, his ears echoing with loud white noise, fading in and out. He hurt...everywhere and all he wanted to do was curl up and get away from everything.

"Transfusing the first unit."

"Dr. Foxx, results are back on his CBC."

"Finally. Get another unit of blood set up, and tell the OR we need four more."

The words just blurred together as his eyes drifted shut, another prick to the crook his arm, more urgent voices, but it all just disappeared into a haze of sunshine.

He covered his eyes against the glare; the shimmer from the desert made it impossible to judge distance. He looked around; the heat was unbearable, tiny droplets of sweat poured down his face, his grey t-shit clung to his body. His mouth felt like it had been stripped away by sandpaper, and considering the barren landscape he didn't doubt the idea.

Nick wiped at his forehead, his palm coming away wet, and adjusted his ball cap. Where the Hell was he? He felt a familiar tug at his neck and realized that his binoculars weighed heavily there and he picked them up, nearly dropping them when his fingertips met scorching hot black plastic. He hissed, shaking his fingers, trying to wet them with a parched tongue.

He pulled way blistered fingers and stared. What the Hell?

Nick felt light-headed and pulled his shirt out from his jeans and waved the damp fabric pointlessly in the air, wiping his sticky face with the hem. He looked up at the clear blue sky that extended miles upwards, no real visible ceiling. He squinted from the harsh rays of the beating sun and looked straight ahead and started walking. No real direction, but it felt like the sensible thing to do.

It was a lot more tedious and exhausting than he thought. His legs felt like they were moving through water; it was a strain, an effort to make any progress and soon after only a few feet he was barely able to breathe, his chest heaving from thin air. The orange fire in the sky was over his head, relentless, and his face blazed with sunburn, despite the brim of his hat.

Nick looked around in search of anything; no cacti, rock or shelter, just endless miles of dust and sand.

He leaned over, resting his hands on his knees, feeling the strong need to remove his shirt; it was a suffocating layer of protection that he could do without, but if he peeled it away, he'd surely roast his skin, and cause even more problems. Slightly dizzy now, he thought about simply taking a break, but knew if he just waited around he'd be dead.

He pulled himself to his full height, face flushed, neck and back soaked from sweat, when he heard a ringing. Flustered, he patted down his pockets and fished out a cell phone with great difficulty. The buzzing device was wedged deep in his pockets, the denim making it difficult to extract.

Finally, breathing harshly from the effort, he placed the phone to his ear.

"Hello?" he spoke franticly his voice ragged.

"Nick?"

He closed his eyes. "Grissom?"

"Yeah, Nick."

He wanted to laugh. "Where are you?"

"I'm right in front of you."

"What?" he stuttered out, scanning the horizon like a dumbass. "Gris, this isn't funny."

"We came out here together, Nick. I don't know how we got separated."
Grissom's voice sounded so much farther way, the connection on the fritz.

"Grissom, I'm lost out here," Nick huffed in the phone, his dried out lips cracking.

"I'm looking at the most beautiful Peregrine Falcon, Nicky. Its head markings are amazing." His boss's voice was filled with such awe, his enthusiasm so rare.

"Grissom, man. Where are you?" Nick panted.

"Use your binoculars if you have to, but I'm really right in front of you."

Nick stared at the plastic cooking against his chest. "You're out here?" he spoke into the phone.

"Yes, Nick, I am. You should really see this falcon."

Nick debated about the binoculars. "Gris, we're out in the desert, no way the Peregrine is out here, man. It's not a desert bird." Laughing to himself about the debate, he grit his teeth and grabbed the binoculars with his left hand ignoring the way it fried away a layer of skin and glanced though them.

As he waited for the whiteness of the bedrock to calm without his sight, he saw his supervisor within the lens and he dropped them, the device thudding against his chest.

"See?" Grissom explained. "I'm right here. You just didn't choose to find me. Different Modus operandi, Nicky," the man's voice explained in his ear. "Did you forget what I told you?"

"Grissom," he breathed heavily, the ground wavering back and forth in front of him.

"Why don't you come over here, Nick? You can add this specimen to your book."

Something kept him there, he didn't move because, well, because it was stupid and preposterous. "Grissom, I can't go over there... you're... you're not there."

"How do you know Nick if you don't try?" The man's voice was hollow, almost hurt. "How are we to build that foundation?"

Nick was shaking his head, his vision faltered, not a graying, more like a white out. Everything became so stark and sharp in hue, nearly blinding.

"You don't want to see this hawk?"

Nick was on the ground, mouth full of dirt, his limbs numb. "There are no ...hawks... out here," he drawled before everything went black.

He was really, really cold, his entire back one solid sheet of ice. Something was attached to his finger, and he tried to wiggle it.

More voices drifted in and out behind him, a few in front as well, and his finger? Well, it didn't want to seem to move very much.

He heard another beeping noise, slightly more subdued, though it could be from the fact that it felt like someone had stuffed his ears with cotton. His eyelids were glued together something fierce, and he could barely move his head, but something...elastic snagged at his hair.

With an effort a slight yelp forced its way from his throat, while his eyes peeled opened all gluey. His first visual assault was another light, like a halo, a face peered down at him covered by a mask similar to those used by the DNA techs. Older face, designer eye glasses and the purest green set of irises. Not fierce like Warrick's, but paler.

"Mr. Stokes."

It sounded like a bad tape recording from one of those old answering machines.

"Hmmmprhh," he replied if you could call it that.

No, it was a green mask, not white like the Lab's, hair hidden by some sort of cap. Nick's eyes darted back and forth; it felt like his floppy hair had been pulled back into a similar knit covering. Though his finger still didn't really respond, the clip was bothersome somehow.

"Mr. Stokes, have you ever been intubated before?" Same faceless person, though the greenish eyes did seem kind.

He shook his head, or so he thought.

"We're going to insert a tube down your throat." He must have reacted, though he wasn't sure how, his body was numb. "Don't worry, you'll be asleep by then. You're in the OR, about to undergo an operation to repair a tear in your kidney. Don't worry, you're in good hands."

"BP is 200 over 130, Heart rate 150," a female voice warned, no way to hide the implication.

That didn't sound very good. His eyes flicked over to the voice in the far corner, but his eyesight couldn't peer far enough.

"You should be feeling very sleepy soon. Just count backwards starting with 100. Can you do that for me?"

Sure he could. "Ninety-nine," he rasped.

Something tugged at his mind, should he be concerned that the worried voice was still relaying more information? Something about a low hematocrit, but he had already forgotten about the number ninety-eight, and had moved on to twenty. Then his lids became too heavy and the breeze from Lake Mead was upon his face.

Nick stood there, staring at the rows of trees, all in full bloom. He viewed everything through a dark filter, the sunglasses that he bought with Warrick, a pair he paid way too much money for, perched on the bridge of his nose. He turned to his left and watched his supervisor stare off into the distance. Nick followed his gaze at a worn out trail in front of them. He cocked his head to one side and looked to his right and to his left to find them in the middle of some sort of carved out walkway.

Puzzled, he searched around for any familiar landmarks and found that every branch, every leaf that littered the ground look exactly the same. He wore one of his dark denim jackets, black-T shirt and his gloves that he wore mostly at night. With a tiny grin he looked down to see his trusty binoculars. He tested them out, placed them in front of his face and played with the focus.

Every direction was identical, branches, canopy above, all sort of this montage that could be any plain wooded area. The breeze though was nice on his face, very refreshing and he allowed his lungs to expand with the crispest of sweet air. If he listened intently, he could pretend that the water along the lake sort of kissed the shoreline while the tiniest waves lapped the shore.

Then he felt his body relax and opened his eyes to see his supervisor look at him inquisitively.

"Which way?"

Nick wet his lips, pondering things. Nope everything looked the same, though he'd been here dozens of times, this wasn't exactly along his normal route. Didn't occur to him to ask how they got here.

"I say left," he pointed.

"Why?" Grissom asked, mainly curious sounding.

Nick examined the direction he chose and wondered a bit as well. "No real reason just a gut feeling." He shrugged. "Just seems right."

The light glinted off of the older man's glasses, lips pursed to say something, then he turned the opposite direction. "I think we should go right."

Nick looked down the exact same path, almost a mirror image of the one he chose. He cleared his throat, Adam's apple moving up and down as he swallowed. "And your reason?"

His boss tilted his head, that brilliant mind calculating. "Based on the odds and the mathematical statistics, right is normally the route to take when faced with a fifty-fifty decision."

Nick felt his lips curl. "I've never heard of that statistic before."

Grissom shrugged. "Doesn't mean that the ratio isn't true. Number wise, it's the most correct choice."

He felt the urge to resist, and studied the path, his mind thinking
back to any text book or study that might have lent credence to that rationale. Grissom stared at him, waiting for the younger man to agree.

Nick looked along the path that seemed in the back of his head to be the best solution, based on nothing more than a tingle along his senses. Then ran all the possible reasons that his superior had given him and scanned that direction. Grissom was waiting for agreement, or an argument.

Nick worked his jaw back and forth and smiled. "Let's go straight."

Grissom looked at the thickly wooded area, and then back at both worn down paths, the mashed down earth indications of varied use. The man sort of made an odd sound. "Okay."

Nick wasn't sure to be shocked or not, but decided that wrestling the reason why was a waste of time. He nodded. "Good."

The trek was more difficult; tree roots jutted out ready to trip them. The pace was much slower, the terrain rougher, but...it didn't matter. The two men hoofed it past low hanging limbs, avoided slight lurches in uneven ground and ducked a few furry forest creatures. Grissom would glance at him every once in a while and Nick would notice a slight grin on his face. He felt his cheeks twist a smile of his own. Then right before they got to a clearing, his supervisor held up his hand, binoculars at his face.

"See that?"

Nick grabbed his own set seeking out what had his boss so animated.
"What?" he asked with a hush.

"Green tailed-Towhee," Grissom said in a hush.

Nick squinted through his lens and shook his head, laughing. "Nah.
Just a finch. Got green feathers though."

"You sure?" Grissom asked skeptically.

Nick felt his good spirits dwindle and let his binoculars drop as he gave his boss a distasteful look.

Grissom checked out the bird one more time, adjusting the lens intently, then pulled the instrument from his face. He chewed on his bottom lip. "Wrong markings?"

Nick seemed bewildered but nodded. "Yeah, the location should be on the lower tail feathers, and um...they're much smaller, and their beaks are..."

Grissom held up his hand to cut him off. "I trust your judgment, Nicky.
Just got carried away in the moment. I was wrong." His boss stood there with such naked honesty. "I've been selfish, haven't been fair to you. I didn't learn a valuable lesson, but I'm trying to now."

He didn't know what to do, so he stood there smiling. Those words, they sounded so familiar.

Grissom cleared his throat this time. "Should we keep moving?"

Nick didn't say a word, but nodded. Grissom marched further into the woods and for once Nick was content with the man leading the way.

Next part saturday