DISCLAIMER:Don't own it... No money made... Just for fun and enjoyment.
SUMMARY: Sequel to Displacement. The CSI team and their recently hired coroner Stephanie are back to work solving cases, sharing companionship and generally making their way through the dire world of criminal investigation with humor and friendship... This one will show the development of the relationship between Grissom and Sara and there should be some other surprises down the road as well. Romance/Drama/Angst/Mature Situations
RATING: M for Mature - I'm starting this one out at "M", since we won't be waiting quite so long for the smut this time out ;) Also, there is a sprinkling of language throughout the story.
A/N: I love little moments like this... They start off as something else completely, and by the time it's over you can't remember how you got there, but you know you've enjoyed the ride.:D
I also wanted to take the time to thank everyone for trying to keep up over the weekend... I posted 9 chapters in under 3 days :O Wow! And here's a warning... If I manage to keep up the pace and finish writing the story by the weekend, you just might see the same thing happening again. :D
REVIEWS: I am always looking for ways to improve my writing, and your reviews let me know if I am hitting my mark. Thank you in advance for the time you take to read & review this story.
Chapter 40
From behind the glass, he watched as the gowned and masked hospital staff scurried about like an ant colony. They checked medications, they drew blood, they wrote down vitals, they adjusted equipment, but the one thing they were not doing was making her better. The only thing they had managed to do was to find a status quo. Her heart rhythms, while steady, were actually too strong and frequent, and the status quo had to be disrupted or they risked sending her into cardiac arrest.
He was standing there, at the glass, but he was not standing on his legs, or his feet, or even his own power. No, he was standing there, but it was not him. It was the shadow of him. The only reason he knew he was still part of the earth was the hand that held him tethered to it. "Gil… We should get back."
He looked to his side and into those eyes. It was the only place he felt comfort in the madness threatening to swallow him alive. "What?"
"Brass just picked up Thomas and Elizabeth… They're going to need you. Can you handle it?" Sara's words washed over him and he tried to form a thought so that he could answer her, but it was proving very difficult.
"I ah… I-I think so." For a man whose mind was filled with the words of thousands, his own inability to speak was crippling.
"It's okay… It's gonna be okay." He heard her words and he wished they were something he could believe.
"She did this once before." The words that came from his lips seemed to have come from someone else.
"Gil?"
"She was eight… Maybe nine? We'd gone to Redwood… A science excursion. She'd been pestering me to take her there for a month. Her Mom was, she was coming around, and Mac and I thought it would be a good change of scenery for everyone." The memories of that day had been sitting at the edge of his mind all morning. And he had not been able to push them away. He needed to talk them through if he was going to be able to figure it out.
"We packed up for a nice day trip, and we had plenty of specimen jars and our cameras. Before we had even been able to get out of the car and stretch our legs, she was off and running. She attacked life, and no matter what was going on, it was hard not to get caught up in it. By the time we had set up the picnic table for lunch, she'd already managed to net half a dozen suspects and was carefully matching them up to her book. And when she found a duplicate, she released it, much to the frustration of her father. Seems she decided his shirt was the perfect place to leave her doubles, and Mac was not a bug person. No matter how pretty his daughter thought they were." He almost smiled at the memory of his full grown friend coming completely unglued every time another butterfly would take off in front of his face, or fluttered past his ear.
"After lunch, I told her she needed to leave the flyers alone, or her father was bound to strap her to the bumper for the ride home. So, we started combing some fallen trees and brush, where there was some decomposing plant life. I explained the process of the cycle of life and she came up to me, put her hand on my shoulder, as I bent over a rotting branch and told me she had heard that lecture enough that she could give it at my next session at the college." He felt Sara hold his arm a little tighter as he told his story, and he watched the nurses and doctors work in the little glass room.
"So, she went off in search of her own discoveries. When I stopped hearing her stomping through the brush, I decided she had either found something, or she was plotting something, and I went off in the direction she'd been running. I found her sitting on a stump, but she didn't turn around when I called her name. She looked like she was holding something, so I assumed she had found something to spark her interest. As I got closer, I realized her breathing was off somehow. When I saw her face, I knew. She was having trouble breathing, she said it felt like when her snake wrapped around her hand. She started coughing, but the coughs got strangled in her throat, like it was closing up. I scooped her up into my arms and ran for the car." A tear ran down his cheek as the words poured out of him.
"I had never been so scared in my whole life. She was struggling for every breath and I had to get help. There was an emergency kit in my car. And I remembered passing a ranger station on our way to the picnic spot. As I ran, I asked her what she was doing when it started and she said she was just running in the underbrush, pretending she was in her favorite Star Wars movie. When I got her back to the car, we checked her for bug bites and didn't find anything, but when Beth pulled at her sweatshirt a bunch of dust and spores fell out of the hood. I gave her a dose of Benadryl and we took off for the ranger station. The ranger took one look at her and set up the nebulizer he had in his kit. Told us a lot of people discovered their allergies running around in the underbrush. Said there was a fern there that belonged to a family of plants well known for people having those reactions to it." His voice trailed off and his face changed.
When his grip on Sara's arm tightened, she turned and looked up into his face. She could see him working through the puzzle in his mind as his face contorted, then he sighed and simply said, "Ferns."
