AN: Took forever, I know. Sorry peoples. Life gets in the way and I've discovered that once you get to these parts, it gets really hard to continue so.. Sorry everyone. Here it is:
Sara was beyond words right now. She had been wanting to have Greg back, have him wake up and everything, but a part of her had been worried about it too. She was a most nervous about how Greg would be when he woke up. There was no doubt about it, he went through a lot and it would have been totally understandable if he took everything hard and started freaking out or something.
But the fact that he was… waving and acting pretty normal given the circumstances made her heart swell and brought tears to her eyes. She quickly tried to suppress them, not wanting Greg, or the others to see her crying.
Everyone stood for a moment, smiling widely at Greg. He started feeling weird again. He was happy that they looked so relieved, but them staring at him like that was making him feel very odd. On top of all that, his energy was winding down considerably and he could feel himself getting more and more tired by the second. His eyes started to droop more, and the last thing he wanted was to go to sleep with them all staring at him like that.
He broke his eyes contact with them and looked up at the ceiling. This seemed to wake them up from their trance. Nick came forward so that he was at Greg's immediate bedside. He smiled down at him.
"Hey G. You scared us."
Greg gave the best half-shrug he could, but they seemed to get the point he was trying to make. It was all about trying the lighten the mood.
They continued to smile down at him.
He looked up again, and decided to get this show going. He closed his eyes, worked up the very last bit of strength he could find, and managed to move his hand onto his stomach. From there, he worked his way up his chest until his hand was close enough to his mouth to make his point.
He took his hand, now resting on his chest, and slowly pointed his index finger up towards face, trying to indicate the tube down his throat, but the drowsiness was making the task unbearably difficult.
The others looked confused, and tried to guess what it was that he wanted. Greg would have laughed if he could after seeing his friends act like they were playing charades.
"You want some water," Catherine offered.
Greg shook his head and continued to point though his finger was growing more and more limp.
"Something else hurts," Nick said with a worried tone.
He rolled his eyes again and looked down at Lindsay.
"Um, I think he just wants the tube out.." she said, stating the obvious in Greg's opinion. The others turned to Greg and asked him if that was in fact what he wanted, and he nodded enough to tell them 'yes'.
Greg marveled at how clear-headed children could be sometimes in comparison to adults.
"Ohh… "
"Yeah, weren't we supposed to call the doctor when he woke up," Warrick asked suddenly.
"Oh!" Catherine blurted out, and ran over to the little white button to call the nurse.
If he could, he would have smiled at their behavior. Yeah, it was a bit annoying, but was none-the-less cute. He had been longing to see them all for what seemed like ever, and here they were, tripping over themselves and acting all funny at the sight of him awake.
But honestly, should he expect anything else? They had seen him at some of the very worst parts of the entire experience, and had seen him when he was found, which he knew was not a pretty sight.
He then decided that their behavior was more than tolerable, and with the lack of energy to do anything else, he closed his eyes and relaxed.
"Mr. Sanders?" Greg heard someone with an unfamiliar male voice.
Greg opened his eyes and looked at the man. He looked like most doctors in his opinion.
"It's very nice to see you awake," the doctor smiled and then continued on. "I'm Dr. Morgan and I'm guessing you would like that tube out?"
He said all of this as he was checking the machines and his charts. When he looked back at Greg, Greg nodded.
"Ok, it won't be comfortable for a while and you won't be able to talk at first, but we'll get you some ice. Ok, on the count of three, I want you to blow out really hard, ok?"
Greg nodded but felt his stomach tightened. He had seen this on tv and remembered how uncomfortable this process seemed to the patients on the screen.
"One… two…three"
Greg used all of his might to blow out, and felt the tube sliding through his throat. He wanted so badly to gag and cough, to get it out. But found he couldn't.
It seemed to take forever and Greg wondered just how long this tube actually was.
Finally, the tube was out and he was having a hard time breathing. He coughed and gasped for air, now that it wasn't automatically provided for him.
"Deep breaths Mr. Sanders."
Stupid doctor, that was easy for him to say.
Greg continued to struggle to get back to normal breathing, but eventually it all became much easier and he was able to open his eyes and focus on the people standing around him.
But he couldn't help but wonder if it was really better this way. They all had a horrified look on their faces.
He smiled at them, which seemed to help a little, but his throat was aching so badly now. Ice sounded pretty good, but honestly he felt against putting anything in his mouth.
"Alright, Mr. Sanders, everything looks pretty good for right now, but we'll keep an eye on you," he turned from Greg to the others. "I'm going to give you another hour in here, but then you'll have to leave for a little while so he can get some rest, ok?"
They nodded and watched him begin to leave.
Right before he left, he turned around to address Greg again.
"I'll have a nurse bring you that ice, ok?"
Greg nodded again, and when he left everyone's attention went back to Greg.
He wanted answers, it was plain and simple. He did deserve to know what all happened. He didn't really remember anything at all that happened right at the end. He seemed to remember seeing the team coming into his room, but he wasn't sure if that was just a dream.
He knew he wasn't supposed to be talking, but oh well. He wanted to know.
He worked up some energy that was running out at an alarming rate; he wouldn't be able to keep himself awake for much longer.
He tried so hard to say "What happened", but nothing came out. Instead, his raw throat wrenched in pain.
However, his attempt was not completely in vain. They knew what he had said because they were exchanging nervous glances to each other.
Nick was apparently elected to give Greg the news because he took a deep breath and began to talk in a hushed tone.
"You were… kidnapped and… we, we got videos and…"
Greg smiled and rolled his eyes, causing everyone to stop and look at him as though he was crazy. The fact that he was smiling about being kidnapped was a very good reason to worry.
Greg shook his head.
"No," he tried to say. "What… happened… to… Ben and… Don? At the end…" He was really just mouthing these words, but a small whisper came as well.
He felt bad that his smiling made them so worried, but he remembered what happened to him up until the part where he was found.
This information eventually registered, and they seemed to breath easier now, which, in turn made Greg feel more comfortable as well.
"Well, Ben was brought out by the kidnapper, I mean Don," Nick started.
"Then Don went back in side and we heard a shot. He uh.. Shot himself," Sara finished.
Greg grimaced. He wasn't sure why this bothered him, but it did. He would never think that what the man did to him was in any way justifiable, but on the other hand, he had suffered a great loss.
"Dead?" He choked out.
"He's in surgery. They don't expect him to make it," Grissom answered, sounding a lot like when he had told Greg about Demetrius James' condition.
Greg nodded and remained quiet. Just looking at the different people in his room.
"And Ben?"
"He was fine when he came out of the house, just a concussion I think."
Just then, there was movement at the door and everyone turned to see Brass enter the room. He looked back at them, then to Greg and smiled after the initial shock of seeing the young man awake wore off.
"Hey Sanders, glad to see you awake."
Greg just smiled and nodded, now too tired and hurting to say anything.
"Where have you been?" Catherine asked, everyone's attention on him, of which Greg was happy about.
"Talking to the kid. Benjamin, I believe. He's ok," he added at Greg's questioning look.
"Well.. Is he going to jail or what?" Nick asked, sounding a little annoyed.
Brass made a face, as though he was wondering what to say next.
"I don't know about that, it really has a lot to do with what Greg has to say." Brass finished, looking a Greg again.
Everyone returned their focus to Greg.
Greg thought about it. It did make sense that a lot of what would happen to Ben depended on him. Ben was guilty in a way, but on the other hand, he wasn't a killer or anything close to it. Just a kid pushed into something by a man he was supposed to be able to consider a father.
Without thinking much more about it, Greg answered their questioning looks:
"He's a good kid," he said simply. "Just… lost."
Brass nodded.
"I thought so too, but he still might face some charges. He didn't call the police or anything."
Greg nodded.
"I know. But.. He helped me.. A lot." He was finding it much easier to talk now, but he was wanting those darn ice chips.
"So what happens now, Jim?" Grissom finally spoke up.
Brass shrugged.
"We keep him under surveillance until we can get an official statement from Greg… then its all up to the judge and the jury."
Everyone nodded.
"As for Don, he probably won't make it to that point."
"That's a shame. His son will have to pay more for something he did," Warrick said, shaking his head.
Sara nodded in agreement. She looked back over to Greg and noticed that his eyelids were staying closed longer when he blinked. He noticed her looking and smiled at her.
She smiled back and felt more tears. How was he still able to smile?
She turned away from his tired eyes, feeling embarrassed.
The nurse came in shortly afterwards with his ice, and after a few minutes of him chewing on it, he was asleep again.
They were asked to leave by the doctor and told they could come back in about two hours, and they knew they would take him up on that offer.
It was lunchtime now, and because they all wanted to go back to see him again, they decided to eat together at a small restaurant down the street from the hospital.
"Can you believe how good he's handling it?" Sara said, while taking a bite of her veggie-burger.
Nick and Warrick shook their heads.
"It's amazing. I know I would be freaking out or something," Nick replied, thinking back to how he felt when he was safe and in the hospital after his attack. No, he hadn't freaked out, but he was definitely in no state to smile and wave to everyone.
"Well, everyone handles things differently," Grissom said knowingly. "And just because he's acting fine doesn't mean he is fine," he added at the look on Nick's face.
"Yeah, we'll just have to be there for him. He could be hiding a lot of his feelings." Catherine added, passing the ketchup to Lindsay.
"Yeah, he is pretty good at hiding things."
"Well, I don't think being there for him will be an issue," Warrick said, taking a sip of his Pepsi.
That summed everything up pretty well, they all thought and spent the rest of the meal talking about a lot of different things, Greg included.
Lindsay didn't say much though, she just wanted to hurry up and get back to Greg. She didn't know what it was exactly, but she just wanted to be there with him.
She knew that it was possible he was hiding his true feelings about what had happened, but she hoped that wasn't the case. Not because she wanted to think of him as this amazingly strong guy, but because that only meant more suffering for him, and he had been through quite enough in her opinion.
She remained quiet and picked at her chicken.
If only time would pass quicker. Just for a little while so that she could go back and see him again...
AN: Ok, so it looks like there might be one more chapter after all. But that will definitely be it because you can only drag stuff like this out for so long. I actually wanted to end it with this chapter, but it didn't work out that way so.. Oh well. Hopefully I will get the last one out eventually, but if you want some excuses, go read the end note on the 5th chapter of my other fic, Snowbound. And I have no idea what's going on with Lindsay and her feelings, but its just whats coming out, so we'll see. Until later my friends!