SLOW BURN

~ Chapter 19 ~

"Okay, that should hold it." Rummaging through the contents of the large first aid kit she carried in with her, Helen pulled out a sealed non-stick pad along with a roll of Micropore tape. "I'll just put a dressing over the top for now and then I think we're almost done."

"Are you sure he doesn't need stitches?" Seated on the far side of the bed, Sara had been intently following the older woman's every move. "I mean, if you think he needs to be seen at the E.R. then I can-"

"I'm not going anywhere, Sara; I've already told you that." Biting back a frustrated sigh, Grissom rolled his eyes as he stared at the ceiling above. "I bent over to pick up a toy and stood up again too quickly that's all; it's really no big deal."

"No big deal?" Sara huffed out an almost contemptuous laugh. "I wish I'd known that when I walked into this room and found you passed out on the floor or when Catherine helped me roll you over because we couldn't get a response out of you or maybe even when your son was screaming in terror because he was clearly picking up on the fact that his mother thought you were dying." She shook her head in attempt to shake off the mixture of fear and dread that her discovery had caused. "Because I did, Gil; I honestly thought we were losing you."

"But you weren't." Realizing just how close she was to having two patients to care for, Helen shot her a quick reassuring smile. "And, as soon as I get this finished he'll be almost as good as new." Placing the dressing gently over the gash that now decorated the right side of Grissom's forehead, she taped it down ignoring the sharply indrawn breath the action elicited. "He can just count himself lucky that he didn't hit those drawers full on; a broken nose would not have looked good in my wedding photos."

"Will it be healed by then?" Sara queried with a concerned frown.

"For the most part." Collecting up the assorted debris around her, Helen nodded. "It's a little on the deep side as evidenced by the size of the bloodstain on your carpet but, to answer your earlier question, it doesn't really need to be stitched; as long as it's kept clean and dry and little fingers are kept well away from it, the steristrips should hold it together just fine." Taking a step back from the bed, she shifted her attention back to Grissom. "Okay, you can sit up now, Gil, but do it slowly, the last thing any of us needs right now is to have to pick you up off the floor again."

Easing himself up carefully until he could rest his back against the headboard, Grissom took a deep breath in and then exhaled slowly as he took in his wife's worried face. "I'm fine, honey, honestly; it's something that could have happened to anyone."

"True, but, in general, people don't just pass out without a reason." Perching herself on the edge of the mattress, Helen fixed him with her best no-nonsense stare. "Catherine mentioned that you'd complained of heartburn right before it happened, what else was going on?"

"Nothing, not really." Grissom shrugged dismissively. "I'm probably a little more tired than usual but considering I've spent most of the past two days travelling to Florida and back that's not surprising."

"He's neglecting to tell you that he barely slept during those two days," Sara added. "And that he's been unwell for the past week or so: nausea, headache, stomach pain," she looked across at Helen. "Pretty much all of the same stuff I called you about last week, remember?"

"That's still going on?" Helen frowned as she studied his pale face. "You really should have had that seen to by now, Gil." She turned back to Sara. "How's Ben been?"

"Oh, he's fine," Sara nodded. "He was back to normal the next day."

"So, a twenty-four hour bug for the two year old and a week-long one for his father?" Helen shook her head, "I don't think so. What do you remember about before you passed out, Gil; was it just the heartburn?"

"Yeah," Grissom started to nod only to stop with a gasp as the movement sent waves of pain through his head and neck.

"That's going to hurt for a while," Helen winced in sympathy before glancing across at Sara. "You might want to follow the usual concussion protocols tonight; checks every three or four hours, if he starts vomiting or you have any trouble waking him, call 911."

"I'll do that," beginning to relax a little, Sara smiled. "He hated being woken last time we went through this but we can call it his punishment for scaring the hell out of me."

"Don't you like how she makes it sound like I did it on purpose?" Grissom quipped, his skin steadily losing the grey pallor it had taken on and returning to its usual healthy tan. "I'm sorry for dragging you in on this, Helen; if I'd known Catherine was calling you-"

"No one dragged me any place I didn't want to be," she smiled, pleased that he was obviously feeling better. "So, let's see if we can work out what this is all about." She held the back of her hand to his forehead. "No more vomiting?"

"No, I'll admit to nausea and stomach ache but they seem to come and go."

"You're not running a fever." She pulled back her hand. "Any lower G.I. problems? Diarrhea, constipation, bloating, anything along those lines?"

Grissom shrugged. "No, nothing at all."

"Well, at least, you lucked out on that score." Reaching for his wrist, Helen's practiced fingers automatically found the pulse point and she fell silent as she concentrated on the beats.

"Any ideas?" Sara asked hopefully.

Holding up a restraining finger, Helen looked at Grissom with a frown. "Have you felt dizzy at all before today?

"Not really; a little when I first got sick, I guess, but considering how much I was throwing up then, that's probably not surprising." He frowned back. "Why?"

"I'm not sure; it's probably nothing." She shifted her focus to his neck and placed her fingers over his carotid artery for a full minute before finally addressing Sara. "You wouldn't happen to have one of those home blood pressure monitors around here, would you?"

"We do actually." Sara nodded. "My doctor wants me to keep an eye on my BP, especially now that we're heading into the third trimester, so I bought one a couple of weeks ago." She pointed towards the door. "I think it's in the kitchen; you want me to get it for you?"

"Yes, please," pulling her fingers away, Helen sat back with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. "If we're going to check your husband out we might as well do it properly." She waited until Sara had closed the door behind herself before turning back to Grissom. "How do you feel now that you're sitting up?"

"Fine," Grissom replied honestly. "I still have the heartburn but, apart from that…" he gingerly touched his forehead, "… and this, of course, I feel pretty normal." He cocked his head. "How about you tell me why you took my pulse twice?"

"Your heart rate is a little lower than I was expecting it to be," she told him. "The average resting heart rate is anywhere between sixty and one hundred beats per minute; both readings I took from you came in at fifty-eight."

"Well, it's bound to be down a little, isn't it?" He asked. "I assume the reason I passed out was because both my heart rate and blood pressure tanked."

"That's my assumption too but it should have bounced back by now," Helen checked her watch. "It's been over half an hour since you fainted."

"Bradycardia?" Grissom frowned then shook his head. "My normal pulse rate tends to be in the mid-eighties."

"And that's the kind of number I was expecting." Helen shrugged. "It's probably being caused by whatever it is that's been making you unwell but then again it might not; have you had any chest pain that you couldn't attribute to heartburn lately; pressure, tightness, anything like that?"

"No, just the heartburn." His eyes met hers and he tried to inject a little levity in the situation. "I'm not about to prove Sara right and drop dead, am I?"

"I doubt it," Helen patted his hand as she chuckled. "Your heartbeat might be a tad slow at the moment but it's strong and steady so I wouldn't worry too much right now; it'll be interesting to see what your blood pressure is though."

"Interesting how?" Stepping back into the bedroom, the still-boxed blood pressure monitor in her hand, Sara looked from Helen to Grissom and then back again. "What did I miss?"

"Is Ben okay?" Grissom butted in, worry for his son and the trauma he'd unwittingly caused the little boy foremost in his mind.

"He's sound asleep on Catherine's lap at the moment," Sara smiled. "She said it took a while to calm him down and get him settled but once she had he was out like a light. I told her to take him through and put him in bed but she doesn't want to risk disturbing him yet." She held the monitor out towards Helen before settling herself, once again, on the bed. "So, what is it about Gil's blood pressure that's going to be interesting?"

"His pulse is a little on the slow side so I want to see if his BP is following suit." Catching sight of the look of fear on Sara's face, Helen hurried to reassure her as she slipped the inflatable cuff around her patient's arm. "It's what I'd consider borderline low, Sara but that's not necessarily dangerous so let's not panic just yet, okay." Satisfied that all was well, she pressed the machine's start button. "You take anything for high blood pressure, Gil?"

"How many men my age do you know that don't?" Grissom quipped as the cuff began to inflate. "My doctor prescribed Caduet."

"Amlodipine and Atorvastatin," Helen commented as she kept an eye on the monitor's LED display. "Did you take any today?"

"One right after lunch," he told her as the machine audibly beeped in time with his heartbeat. "I forgot to pack them when I left for Gainesville so that was the first one in two days."

"And how did you feel when you were out there?"

"Fine," he told her as he kept his eyes locked on the small LED display beside him. "More than fine, actually; I felt much better yesterday than I have all week." The cuff around his arm deflated and a drawn out beep signaled the end of his reading. "One hundred and nine over sixty-three," he looked up. "That's low too."

"It's actually within the range for normal but it's not really the kind of reading I'd expect from someone who's being treated for hypertension." Helen thought for a moment. "I wonder if the Caduet is actually lowering your blood pressure a little too much." She stared long and hard at Grissom. "You don't happen to remember what it was the last time your doctor checked it, do you?"

"One twenty-six over eighty-eight," Sara told her. "That was about a month ago."

"So, we've gone from high-normal to low-normal in the space of four weeks." Tapping her fingernail against her teeth, Helen frowned. "And we've got a lowered heart rate too." Pulling a notebook from her first aid kit, she wrote the figures down. "Okay Gil, here's what we're going to do: over the weekend, Sara is going to take your blood pressure three times a day," she looked across at Sara, "morning, noon and night without fail."

"Got it," Sara nodded as Helen turned back to Grissom.

"She's going to text each reading to me and she's also going to keep note of them herself for when you see your doctor." Seeing Grissom about to speak, she silenced him with a glare. "Which is going to happen as soon as possible," she looked at Sara. "Call first thing Monday morning, tell them what's happened and make sure they know he needs to be seen."

Grissom rolled his eyes at the prospect. "That sounds like fun."

"I'm sure it will be," Helen quipped with a smile as she returned the monitor to its box. "If your pulse and blood pressure don't start to behave themselves, I can almost guarantee that your doctor will order an ECG, a stress test, an ultrasound, most probably a CT scan and more blood tests than you ever knew existed."

"Like I said," Grissom grimaced at the prospect. "Sounds like fun."

"And in the meantime?" Sara asked.

"If there's any problems or you're worried about anything, give me a call and I'll be over in a flash, okay." Closing up her first aid kit, Helen offered her a reassuring smile. "Not that you'll need to though because everything's going to be fine especially since your husband is now under orders to spend the whole weekend right where he is, relaxing in bed and catching up on all of that sleep that he's missed." Turning, she grinned at the almost petulant look on Grissom's face. "If nothing else, that'll keep him out of trouble."

Staring out across the almost-black expanse of the Red River, Zephyr smiled at the array of bright neon lights on the opposite shore; it reminded him of Las Vegas, a considerably pared down version admittedly, but similar nonetheless. The crowds milling about the place were smaller too but the atmosphere was still the same - the electric buzz of excitement, hope and greed that drew people, again and again, to places like Vegas, Atlantic City and even here, to Shreveport, Louisiana.

Pushing the final piece of bacon cheddar burger into his mouth, he wiped his fingers clean before slipping his hand into his pocket and pulling out his most recently acquired set of car keys. He'd lifted them on a whim from the pocket of a drunken college kid in a darkened bar in Ruston at lunchtime and been somewhat surprised to find himself the driver of a one-year-old Ford Fusion that he hoped, with a judicious change of license plates as he moved from one state to another, would look both smart enough and generic enough to almost guarantee he'd have an easy, hassle-free journey from Louisiana all the way back to Nevada.

A sudden wind blew up and Zephyr stopped where he was, pulling the front of his black Nautica jacket closed and zipping it up. It was as he was about to take a step that the flyer on the ground caught his eye or, more to the point, the name emblazoned across the flyer did – Toby Arcane.

He smiled coldly at the words and remembered just how much he'd enjoyed reading all about his fellow illusionist's fall from grace. He'd reveled in the scandal that had followed the younger man's descent into drugs and alcohol and celebrated with a twelve-pack of Noche Buena beer when he'd read reports that there wasn't a single casino in the entire state of Nevada that would offer him a contract to perform.

But, apparently, Shreveport's Regal Star casino wasn't quite as discerning.

Zephyr glanced at his watch and weighed up his options: he could make his way back to the Ford and leave Shreveport – and its drug-addled magician – behind or he could hang around for a while longer, see if he could catch the show and maybe pay his old friend Toby a visit; after all, the two of them had a lot of catching up to do.

A/N: Thanks, SylvieT :)