He didn't feel the breeze from Lake Mead, not the overwhelming dry heat of the desert, any sounds of woods. He tried to wet his lips and found it difficult to move a numb tongue. Someone had stuffed the inside of his mouth with mothballs, or worse, stale sponges, soaking up any spittle.
Little sounds of air escaped his throat as he scrunched up a face that felt like waxed paper replaced his skin. His eyes, well they had been sealed shut, icky and scratchy, but after a couple of minutes he managed to pry them open, closing them again quickly.
It was a dim-lit room, and he had the oddest sensation that he was floating. He heard a soft laugh inside his head for some reason and then his hearing began to work. The weird humming of the room faded out to more particular sounds.
Beeping somewhere above his head, and a pump...no, pumping sounds. Nick could barely move his head, so drained of energy that it sort of flopped over, his eyes focused on something wrapped around his left arm accompanied by a tight sensation.
A blood pressure cuff expanded. He blinked suddenly, recognizing these sounds, these sights. His eyes traced an IV from the crook of his arm and followed the tubing to a bag of red fluid.
Blood.
He had needed a fill up. That was scary.
An annoying clippie thing was attached to his pointer finger; he grunted, sounds merely a scratchy moan, as his head took a long time to roll to his other side.
Another IV, a bag of clear solution inserted into the back of his hand, right arm wrapped in bandages. He wasn't flat on his back; his bed was angled slightly up, inside a tiny cubicle, curtains to each side of him, an empty plastic chair in the corner. The more he allowed his eyes to remain open, battling slumber, the more dizzy and sick to his stomach he became. Though he recognized things, waking up in a dark, vacant hospital room, literately tied to tubes, and too disorientated to think, was enough to make anyone just a little upset.
'Someone' must have been paying attention because as soon as the onset of his distress began, soft footsteps approached and a lady checked several machines and readouts that must have signaled his current alarm. The nondescript nurse leaned over the bed, and spoke in a very soft voice.
"The pain too much, Mr. Stokes? You're on a high dose now, and you're not due for more for another half an hour, but I can get the attending to give you a small amount. Then see about adjusting the next round for you."
For some reason his mind flashed to be deposited along a disgusting floor, the image of a door shutting closed and the world crushing him afterwards. He let out a tiny sound; his hand tried to grab air, but all it did was jerk along the bed. That beeping noise jumped a bit, and the woman other sensed something, or read a readout that wasn't very positive.
"It's okay, Mr. Stokes. You're doing fine. I know this must be very confusing for you."
He didn't want to be coddled; he just wanted to know what was going on,
And the mere struggle with everything began to make that annoying noise increase, not to mention a white hum in his ears. The damn tubes in his nose grew more annoying and he really wanted to yank them out. They were odd---the whole room was strange. It was silent besides the soft drone of machines, and the sensations of numbed areas of his mind.
He felt detached and his auditory sensations very muffled. A tight feeling began inside his chest and he struggled to even wiggle the dead weight of his limbs. Why the hell was he feeling so freaked out?
The nurse looked ready to call for reinforcements, but a commotion around the entrance to his hideaway caused the woman to look behind her. Nick heard distinct arguing, but was too preoccupied with the graying out of his vision to pay it much bother.
"Sir, we told you visiting hours were over."
That got his attention, and Nick's heavy breathing abated somewhat when someone hobbled their way in. A man using crutches maneuvered between both nurses and came towards his bedside.
"And I said I wasn't going anywhere until he woke up."
That was Grissom's voice and the man appeared before his line of vision within seconds of recognizing that tone. No way were the nurses going to persuade that man from doing something or get in his way.
"I'll go get Dr. Bernard, it's okay," the first nurse addressed the one Nick hadn't even seen yet. "No harm in his friend visiting while we get his dosage adjusted."
Everything buzzed around as Nick waited for his boss to get near the rail; his throat felt so raw, vocal cords uncooperative. Queasy stomach flip-flopped the longer he remained awake.
Grissom balanced as he fought the plastic chair and eased himself down, sliding it closer towards the ill man. "Don't try to talk yet, Nick."
It didn't stop him though; gravel and sawdust, but he managed a few hoarse words, swallowing several times. "W-what h-happened?"
"You were injured very badly."
Grissom spoke to him, so frankly and honestly, it almost scared the hell out of him. The supervisor must have sensed it and both hands gripped the steel rail. "You're going to be fine. Just relax, give yourself time to mend."
He remembered what happened to him, mostly, a few gaps in the details, it was just his mind was a sluggish as his abused body. "'Mm ok-ay?'
Grissom wasn't sure exactly what Nick wanted to know, but the arrival of the ICU nurse saved him the effort. She pulled out a syringe and brought it over to the IV port when Nick's hand lurched forward to touch her arm.
The caregiver held off for a second and Nick peered intently at her, then at his boss. Grissom sort of understood, and honing his new skills of trying to place himself in the other man's position he took a guess.
"I think Nick would like to know what exactly is going on with his injury and treatment before you knock him out again."
He looked up at Grissom in semi-shock, but tried to clear his throat, his voice grated. "P-please," he requested, his twang heavy.
"You really should just get some sleep until your doctor comes by to explain everything to you." She was sweet, so syrupy that she oozed taffy. Not really, but that was the mental image Nick couldn't shake.
"Just tell me," his voice a buzz saw. He wanted to spit, his mouth felt so foul.
"He just wants to be told the facts about what is being done to him and why," Grissom spoke up.
Nick wanted to pinch himself to make sure this wasn't another dream.
It was possible, he felt so damn loopy, but the rumba in his belly told him otherwise.
"This is Rebecca, Nick. She's been with you since you were brought to recovery and here. You're in the Intensive Care Unit," Grissom explained, obviously giving the nurse a springboard of sorts.
The debilitated criminalist waffled between both people, but rested his eyes along the nurse.
Rebecca fell for that 'look' and smiled warmly to try to set him at ease. "Okay. You had a laceration to your right kidney that also slightly injured one of the major blood vessels. A surgeon went in to repair it. You also received some stitches to your arm to repair the damage from having them pulled out. Mild concussion to top it all off."
His head hurt, a ringing now in his ears, but he nodded that he understood.
"You're hooked up to machines that automatically monitor your vitals every twenty minutes. We'll be taking your temperature as well to make sure you're not getting an infection. One of your IVs contains normal saline, and hefty antibiotics. The other one is just to give you one more unit of blood according to your doctor's instructions."
Nick fiddled with his nasal cannula as the plastic hurt his nose.
"We have you hooked up to a catheter. We expect to see blood in your urine for a few more days, which is normal. In another 24 hours, if your CBC count comes back within the standard range, then you'll go to a step down room."
He mouthed, how long, but it only came as a garble.
"You'll be in the hospital a while, Nick. A week or more. All bed rest, but if you just let this lady to her job you'll sleep for the next day or two."
Grissom watched the man huff even in his sad state, but groaned that it was fine, though he mouthed for water.
"Not yet, Nicky. But maybe the nurse might allow you to rinse your mouth out?" The supervisor stared at the sweet lady who at the moment didn't seem very amused about being told how do to her job.
Nick knew that feeling very well and gave the man a half grin. Grissom arched his eyebrow having obviously just developed ways to read his mind. The mental ward must have experimented on them both when they had not been looking.
The mere thought conjured up too many bad thoughts.
The case. Franco. He blinked. Nigel.
Again his facial expressions were now a map to be interpreted by someone who had always before been clueless.
"We'll talk about what happened when you're feeling better." Grissom answered for him.
"Nooo, tell me n-now," he demanded. Well he sort of mewed, but the Vulcan mind meld that his boss had obviously performed kicked in.
"Franco is alive, although pretty busted up and in another wing of the hospital. Crane is behind bars where he belongs and the rest can wait."
Nick breathed deeply, feeling an odd sensation along his spine...not a good one at that. He sort of nodded with his eyes closed. He felt a hand on his shoulder.
"You agreeing with me?"
Nick reined his depleted resources and collected a whispered reply.
"Not arguing."
He felt a hand squeeze his shoulder.
"St'mach," he murmured.
"I'll tell Rebecca to give you something for that, too."
The hand rested along his arm, and Nick let the blackness take himBefore the nurse came back to send him off to dreamland.
He had a string of visitors, or so he had been told. Nick fiddled with a tiny hand control; a little push against the button and another small dose of morphine would be his. He had been playing with it for the last hour or so. Considering he'd only been awake for little more than two it was damn frustrating, battling the need to use it.
Again.
A magazine lay on the little table next to his bed, but he could never focus long enough to read the articles. He wasn't allowed to move the elevation of the bed up much more than a few degrees above horizontal.
In fact he was not allowed to move or do anything...nothing. Except lay around on his back, an injured area that began to gnaw away slowly, a little dagger that twisted into his muscles there. His nurse had come in, right on time.
Another vitals check, another set of "How are you doing? How's the pain? Anything I can do for you just ask."
He blew out a breath, his finger itchy to press down, only to spare himself the agony of restlessness. Forced to remain still, unable to move around would make anyone restless, or stir crazy. For him, it made him skittish and on edge.
And damn cranky.
"Why don't you spare yourself the torment and just use it?"
Nick automatically moved upwards in the bed, sending a lighting strike of pain right through him. He grimaced, sucking in a ragged breath before his vision faded from white and then back to normal living color.
"Sorry," Sara said in real sympathy.
Nick wasn't very pleased at being startled so easily, too zoned out to even notice that a visitor had come in. He eased his body back along the bed, sighing heavily. "Been sleepin' for two days now. Just want to be awake more I guess." He was complaining, feeling miserable and wanted to share that for once.
Sara leaned over the railing. "You have to stay here at least another five or six days. Use the PCA machine if you're in pain. It's what it's there for."
He didn't answer her; instead the stiffness of his back grated on him, the sickening ache becoming more pronounced, not quite throbbing though. Once the vibrations got too much, when every slight shift was unbearable he'd squeeze the 'happy' trigger. Sleep was overrated...he'd been doing way too much of it. Though being an invalid was just as terrible a punishment.
His fingers still twitched along the enticing button.
Sara sat quietly waiting for him to respond, or talk...but the silence dragged on and his face became more pinched looking with discomfort.
"You're doing it again, you know."
His eyes drifted over, too suddenly drained to move even his head. He cleared his throat and formed one of his weak smiles, but it sort of faltered into a thin line. "What?"
Sara found his IV very fascinating as her fingers traced the bruised area around it. "Avoidance. The whole buckaroo routine."
He laughed and it hurt, hand along his stomach, tube pulling down below, smarting a bit. "I don't know..."
"Stop it, Nick." Sara's wandering fingers held onto his hand stilling her nervous movements more than sending him comfort. "Just stop," she whispered.
The plastic of the device grew warm in his twitchy hand. "I'm..." He was going to say fine, but then even he couldn't be that hypocritical. "You don't know the types of things I see when my eyes are closed," his voice brittle.
The chair squeaked. "Nightmares?" she asked, fingers lightly stroking a safe patch of skin.
"Darkness," he replied.
"You're not alone, Nick. Never have been," Sara responded, voice reflective at his honesty.
He exhaled, images cascading though his woozy head. It didn't even occur to him to ask more details about the case, his normal distraction for these types of situations. Something weighed heavily upon him, a sensation more bewildering than his condition or answers he normally hungered for.
He'd been snowed under for too long, his brain cells occupied over more important things then self-analysis. Warrick had been there that morning, the first warm hours that his own pain management had been explained to him. The fog from waking up from his drug-induced slumber still ruled his body.
He had stared at the ceiling, tiny dots that he constructed constellations out of. Conversations with his best friend lost, probably full of nonsensical babble. Now, well, now he was really aware of everything that had happened in a blurry set of frightening snapshots.
"It's okay to be scared." Sara's voice brought him back to the room, to the damn bed he was imprisoned in.
His fingers curled then relaxed, a game now with the promise of relief. The hot poker making a re-appearance.
"I know," he drawled, body spasming again. Teeth that ground together.
Nick turned to face Sara, a friend, when a knock echoed in the tiny room. The chance evaporated.
Sara got up to let the next visitor in, and he heard the low male voice of his boss. Bits of conversation popped in his head and he stared at the ceiling knowing that connecting the dots would get real old.
He pressed the button, the machine releasing a blissful cloud of morphine. Nick felt his body get slightly warm, his sore back begin to melt into the hard bed within seconds.
Feet padded along linoleum and a body sat back down into plastic as another presence stood a safe distance from the bed.
"Nick?" Sara's voice sounded so far away.
"You said he was awake now." Grissom's lower cadence drifted along closed eyelids.
"He was." Sara's voice held something he couldn't place.
Then Nick welcomed sweet surrender for the next few hours.
A/N at my bio