"Nick had an allergic reaction to the morphine we've been giving him for the pain. All the throwing up he did caused more damage to his ribs, and he's now in a very severe state of pain due to not getting any relievers or sedatives."
Warrick shook his head. "How come he was fine when I saw him?"
"He wasn't aware of the pain because he was still on morphine and had a bad concussion. Now he's not in so much of a daze and he probably doesn't even remember that happening."
"But he was fine...I talked to him like nothing had ever happened, he remembered everything. Are you telling me now he's not?"
Dr. Manah sighed. "The affects of what happened to him are now starting to fully take their toll on Nick's body. All the drugs are wearing off, and now that he's awake everything's much worse. He's so weak from all the blood loss, and his heart's weaker than it should be. It's having trouble working as hard as it has to."
"What if he eats something? That should help him get some stength." Catherine offered. She had arrived shortly after Warrick had went in to see Nick, and her hopes had been dashed since he came out.
"He can't. The deep knife wound pierced his intestinal tract. If he ate, it would be very painful and cause more damage than it would help. I can't say for sure what's going to happen in the long run, but it doesn't look good as of right now."
Nick was extremely confused. The dizziness wouldn't go away, and neither would the pain. He tried to clench his fists, but that only made his hands hurt more. That's when he noticed he couldn't feel his fingers.
He raised his hands above his face and stared at them. He could barely move his fingers, but couldn't feel them moving or anything. He pressed his hands into the sheets of the bed, but it only felt like he was touching air. And to make matters worse, his vision hadn't cleared up since he woke up. The outskirts of his vision were dark and blurry, and he couldn't really see anything unless he was looking directly at it. He felt like he was at a pitch black crime scene and could only see what he shined his flash light on.
Why is everything going wrong? I felt fine before...now I can't even move. Why do I feel like I've been drained of everything in my body?
He was now at the point where his muscles were sore from all the shaking. He was freezing and hot at the same time. Every breath he took felt like it only made it half way to his lungs before disappearing. His head hurt enough already without the added stress of his messed up vision. He closed his eyes and tried to relax, but couldn't. He felt like he was suffocating, but the deeper breaths he took, the more his ribs cried out in protest.
What worried him the most was he could feel the searing pain in his palms, but couldn't feel the soft fabric under his fingertips.
Greg sighed at the mess in front of him. He had been sent to Nick's house to look for any more evidence that could be found.
"Talk about signs of a struggle." He mumbled to himself. He didn't know where to start, so he just looked around quickly to see anything that might jump out at him. The more he looked around, the more he realized that this was more than a struggle. Someone had been looking for something, and by the looks of the destroyed house, hadn't found it.
Greg's heartbeat increased ten fold when he remembered Nick's brother visiting him at the crime lab. He had been across the hall from them in Hodges' lab. He remembered the lab tech was going on and on about something that didn't matter, so Greg's attention had wandered across the hall to the break room. He thought his mind was playing tricks on him when he saw what appeared to be two Nick's, but then realized the other man was older looking and a little taller. He didn't think twice about it then when he saw Jeremy hand Nick a bulging envelope, but now he was starting to piece together what Brass had told him back at the house they found Nick and Warrick at.
Nick's brother had been involved with Eric Taylor and his friends when he was younger and had gotten himself into some trouble with them. But no one had thought Nick was involved too. They just thought he was the leverage to get Jeremy to cooperate because that's what they had been told. Greg didn't want to jump to any conclusions, but he had a funny feeling that Nick was involved more than they thought he was. He just needed to find that package before anyone else did so his friend wouldn't get into any more trouble.
The only problem was he had no idea where to start looking.
The only thing that kept Warrick from completely losing his mind was Catherine. She kept reassuring him that everything was going to be fine, that Nick always pulled through and he was going to this time. They sat in the waiting room for hours while more tests were run on Nick. Not knowing how their friend was doing was killing both Warrick and Catherine.
Finally Dr. Manah returned with Nick's folder in his hands. He got right down to business. "We took an X-Ray of Nick's hands..." He trailed off, not sure how to continue. "And we found that tendons and nerves have been serverely damaged."
"How severe?" Catherine asked.
"He has limited mobility in his fingers and almost no feeling left. To him, it feels like his hands have gone completely numb. He can't feel anything in his hands above his wrists."
Warrick shook his head slowly. "Is there anyway to fix it?" He asked.
Manah sighed. "Unfortunately, no. The damage is permanent. But that's not even the worst of what we found."
Catherine gripped Warrick's hand in hers and tried to hold her tears back. "What else?" She asked softly.
"We're not 100 sure yet, but we think Nick's optical nerves have been damaged from the impact his head sustained with the window. His vision in dark and blurry, and he can't focus on something unless he's staring at it. I'm going to run a CAT Scan to find out the extent of the damage."
Warrick shook his head again. "You can't...Nick can't." Dr. Manah looked at him with a confused expression on his face. "He's claustrophobic." Warrick said.
"We can't be sure of what's wrong unless we run it...you don't think there's any way he can handle it?"
"I don't think so. He can't even watch people crawl through tunnels on TV."
"What if he's asleep?" Manah asked.
"No, cuz if he wakes up that'd be a lot worse."
Manah thought for a second before saying, "I can allow you to go in with him to keep him calm. As long as he doesn't move or talk that's fine. Could that work?"
"I don't know, I guess we're gonna have to try. Does he know he has to have one yet?"
Manah shook his head. "No, I wanted to inform you of the test results before...I think it'd be better if you talked to him before. You know him a lot better than I do."
Warrick nodded slowly. "Yeah...okay." He stood slowly and looked back down at Catherine, who smiled sweetly.
"He's gonna be okay if you're with him."
Warrick smiled back before turning and following Dr. Manah to Nick's room. He walked in slowly and hesitated for a second when he saw Nick's eyes fixed on him. His heart wrenched at the thought of his best friend not being able to see. He walked over to the chair next to Nick's bed and sat down without a word.
Nick closed his eyes and tried not to worry, but the glimpse he caught of the look in Warrick's eyes told him something was wrong. He could just tell.
"Nicky..." Warrick said softly, but loud enough to be sure Nick could hear him. "The doctors uh...they need to...you have to have a CAT Scan to see what's wrong with your eyes."
Nick opened his eyes and turned his head so he was facing Warrick. "Do I have to?" Nick knew exactly what a CAT Scan meant. A small space where he would be for up to an hour. He wouldn't be allowed to talk or move, even if he could in the first place.
Warrick nodded. "Yeah buddy, you do. They need to see if they can fix whatever's wrong. I'm gonna go in with you if you want me to...you can do this man. It's gonna be okay."
Nick smiled slightly. "I guess I don't have much of a choice."
Greg didn't know whether to hate himself or be proud of himself. He couldn't remember what made him think to check under Nick's couch, but he did. That's where he found the loose floorboard with the package underneath. Before he realized what he was doing, he had opened the package and took out the first thing he got his hands on, which was a stack of photos.
He slowly flipped through them, not wanting to believe what he saw. He tried to tell himself the guy in the photos was Jeremy, even though he knew it was Nick. The main focus of the photos wasn't Nick, though. It was Eric, the dead guy back at the house, and the drugs or whatever else he was doing in the pictures.
Greg looked into the envelope and saw a few computer discs and casettes. Before anyone found him, he stuffed everything back in and bagged the envelope. He packed up the rest of his stuff and headed back to the crime lab. He was able to talk Archie into taking a coffee break so he could use the A/V lab without anyone else seeing or hearing what was on those tapes.
It was mostly of Eric giving out intructions to everyone else, but Nick was still on them doing things he shouldn't be. Greg finally understood what he wished he had never figured out.
"Eric needed to find this so they couldn't blackmail him with it..." He said outloud to himself. "Nick and Jeremy worked for him." Greg put everything back into the package and slowly sat back in his chair. "Now what the hell am I supposed to do?"
Nick was surprised at how easily he was able to stay calm. All he had to do was close his eyes and listen to Warrick tell him everything was fine and that he was going to be okay. Not once did he think of Walter Gordon, ants, or suffocating. It was a lot harder than he thought it was going to be, but he was able to do it.
"It's almost done Nick. It's almost over." Warrick's voice was reassuring, and without it Nick probably would have had a panic attack. "Just a few more minutes man, the you're outta here."
Warrick hadn't been lying. Soon enough, Nick was out of the small tube and back in his room. He was shaking slightly and still had a very bad headache, but other than that he was okay. But he still didn't understand what was going on.
"H-how come nothing hurt b-before?" Nick asked. His voice was quiet and shaky from the pain and weak state his body was in.
"You weren't really aware of what was going on and they were able to give you some drugs for it. But you're allergic to morphine, and they don't wanna make anything worse." Warrick explained. He wished he could do something to help Nick feel better, but he knew nothing would work. Nothing could make this pain go away.
Nick looked down at his shaking hands. "My hands aren't g-gonna get better, are they." He said as a statement rather than a question.
Warrick bit the inside of his cheek. He wished Eric was still alive so he could kill him for doing this to Nick. "No man...they're not. The damage can't be fixed."
Nick nodded slightly. "It just feels weird...like they're frozen or something. I guess I'll get used to it." Nick looked back up at Warrick. "What about my eyes?"
"They don't know for sure yet. They might be able to fix whatever it is that's wrong." Nick fell silent and the expression on his face was enough to make Warrick want to punch a wall. "Don't worry Nick, everything's gonna be okay. Just relax and get better for me bro. You're gonna be alright."
"What if I don't w-wanna be?" Nick's voice was barely above a whisper.
Warrick wished he hadn't been able to hear him. ""Why...what are you talking about? Why wouldn't you want to get better?"
"I'm sick of everything. I'm s-sick of everything I've done...I'm sick of being me. I j-just want everything to be ov-"
Warrick cut Nick off midsentence. "Don't finish that sentence. I don't care what you think, you're not giving up. I won't let you. If you quit, so do I. It's that simple Nick."
Nick wished it really was that simple. He wished he had the will to live. He wished he deserved to get better and have everything be alright for him again like it had been so many other times. He was sick of second chances and sick of starting over. He wanted everything to end, especially the pain. But he knew that as long as Warrick wasn't giving up, he couldn't either. He still had that one person who would never let him down, so he had to at least try and repay the favor his best friend had always done for him.