Title: Chasing Ghosts
Rating: R
Spoilers: Grave Danger and season 6. And my fic, Just This Once that fed this beast.
Pairing: Nick/Warrick
Characters: Pretty much all. Warrick's POV
Category: Case-file, angst, romance (slash) and h/c
Summary: Nick gets unwillingly entangled in a case and Warrick is forced to watch how control slips out of his hands.
Author's Note: Thank you to my wonderful betas hobbesaholic , mairi and sunhawk, who sorted me out and got the story readable. And a special Thank You to kristen999 for prodding me very gently but firmly. Hope you're not too disappointed - see there's a huge difference between your talent and my very modest trials at scribbling.
Disclaimer: Me own zip and nada, 'cept an overactive imagination. The characters in this fic that do not belong to Bruckenheimer are mine and are totally fictional, with no ties to any living or dead namesakes.

Chapter 10

He woke at someone poking his ribs. "Sir, you can't sleep here," an orderly with his trolley informed him while waiting patiently to clean under the couch Warrick had fallen asleep on.

"Uh?" Warrick let out, rubbing his eyes.

"You can't –"

"Yeah, yeah, I got your number," Warrick groaned and cast a look at the clock on the wall. He had to blink twice when he realized he had been asleep for eight hours straight. Disbelievingly he gazed over to the door he'd sworn to watch and saw Brass sitting there, pages of a newspaper partly hiding his face.

"What the -, " Warrick was on his feet in a second and by the door in two. "You let me fall asleep?" he asked Brass accusingly.

"Naw," the detective replied, "Catherine threatened to get me fixed if I woke you up and I think she was right, coz you still look like you've been dragged up a mountain and dropped to roll down."

Warrick's eyes were already taking in the scene in the emergency room. Nick's face was now covered with an ordinary oxygen mask, gone was the ventilator. But he still looked far too still and the monitors were still attached to various parts of his body. Besides him sat Sara, her hand on his arm and eyes fixed on the face. He saw her lips moving and was unsure if she actually was talking to Nick or saying a prayer. "How is he?"

"Hanging in there, the kid's tougher than most and you have orders from your boss to get home and get some rest." Brass continued turning pages like he wasn't really reading, just skimming through as if to occupy himself with anything handy.

"Well I'm suspended so he really can't tell me where to hang out." Warrick tapped his fingertips on the window to get Sara's attention.

"Actually you're not any longer, well officially you are but un-officially you can swing by Bobby and pick up your gun any time because we need you to watch Nick when he gets home. Mrs. Stokes found the condo broken into, can't let Nick outta our sight for a long time now. "

"Huh?" he turned confused to look at Brass.

"His Mom found the place ransacked and naturally freaked out. We moved her to a safe-house and Nick's apartment is now another crime scene. We'll try to get her home as soon as possible; we can't have anybody with any ties to Nick in this town or state right now, too damn dangerous. She agreed when we promised Nick would be shipped home as soon as he can be moved – in the meantime you're his un-official bodyguard. You'll have officers to aid you but we're currently looking for a place to hide Nick until this thing is settled. Have to keep this low profile until we get enough to move in. We have the fingerprints of the perpetrator and a hit in AEFIS. The perps are slacking off. But it seems this punk has vanished off the face of the earth."

Warrick's heart made a strange jolt. "To Texas?"

"Well it's not like Nick has anybody here to look after him the way he's gonna need with those injuries." Brass looked at him from under his brow, a smirk forming. "Only solution I see really, at this point."

"He has me," Warrick stated with conviction, "I'll always be on his court, as long as needed. Forever, if it comes to that."

"Well, depends on what Nick has to say and his Mom can be very persuasive, lemme tell you. And with all that's happening, I really don't think she'll let you have him Brown."

Warrick glared but caught himself in time before he let his mouth run off with him. "Where is she now?" Warrick asked instead while making signs to Sara that he wanted to trade places with her.

"Gil took her out for breakfast and will try to get her to rest. She'll be flying home tomorrow, probably kicking and screaming. You should get some rest yourself, your boy's not going anywhere."

Sara opened the door and Warrick slid inside with a frown in Brass' direction and a pleading look in Sara's. "I just need to see him."

Sara nodded. "But you have to promise to get something to eat before you swing by the lab. Grissom will be back there in an hour approximately and he'll fill you in on the latest, if there's any news that is."

Warrick simply nodded, his eyes already on his bud in the bed.

Nick was breathing on his own, a little too shallow for Warrick's liking but even the raspy inhales and steady exhales sounding like a jam-session of virtuosos letting it go in a smoky bar on the Strip. Music to send your synapses on overload by flooding your cortex with emotion. His fingers wrapping around the wrist of his bud, pulse steady and strong like a drumbeat, making him exhale deeply in relief.

Warrick gripped the lax hand on the sheet, squeezing it softly. "Yo Bro, glad you decided to hang around."

"He's very tired," Sara spoke in a soft whisper, "but he was awake briefly an hour ago, confused and weary but still all Nick. Told his mother very sternly to go home, that he was all right."

"And you didn't come get me?" Warrick glared.

"Didn't want to leave him," Sara's gaze fell back on Nick.

"So my bro is on the mend then," Warrick cracked his first smile in days, "odds finally in his favor?"

Sara smiled ruefully; "the odds have no say when it comes to Nick Stokes it seems."

"Nah," Warrick grinned, "my boy won't go down without a hell of a fight. I guess fate should have learned that by now. Don't mess with Nicky, he's gonna kick your ass even while lying down."

Sara nodded; "we're like cat and dog at times, but I'm so damned proud of him right now. I was just telling him that, how much he amazes me at times by just sticking through it all."

"Nicholas Stokes, lightweight champion of kicking ass." Warrick nodded before he had to let go of Nick's hand in order to keep his churning emotions under control. "I'll go get my gun. You watch over my bro while I'm gone. I'll be back in a jiff."

Sara smiled at the tightly reined in emotion in Warrick's voice when he turned abruptly and walked out.

Sitting down by Nick's bed she smiled at the man, taking his hand. "I don't know why I didn't see that before. Call myself a level 3, huh? Well you're right, there's evidence and then there's our interpretation of the evidence. You're gonna have to give me a crash course in the latter Nick. I never noticed that piece of evidence staring me in my face before. Makes me wonder what else I'm missing, y'know."

Warrick stretched his legs as he walked to the truck he'd left haphazardly parked when he rushed in. He was sure there'd be a citation for parking the SUV's front wheels on the elaborate flowerbeds. It seemed like it had happened a week ago and it was a mere 36 hours or so. Shaking his head he turned back to look at the entrance of the ER, catching the two heavily armed guards posted outside. Desert Palm apparently was not keen on getting the reputation of being the hospital with the highest mortality rate due to domestic terrorism. And still he wasn't entirely at ease with leaving Nick there. If the man ever found out how much he fretted over him he'd bust his chops from here to the Pacific.

With a sigh he turned to walk the few yards to his SUV, not even raising a brow as he plucked the folded paper with the citation off the windshield and climbed into the hotness of his sunbathed car.

He simply sat there for a moment, trying to gather his scattered thoughts. The case was still wide open and that left him with an uneasy gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach. Russian mob, FBI and a hit man bestowed a bullet in the neck and dropped as a warning. A warning for what and to whom? It all seemed sketchy at best, what was the real reason for the shoot out in the alley? That must have been what started it all? But that crime scene had been compromised big time. Only chance to get something out of it was following the trails of the DBs at the scene and see if that would lead somewhere.

"The human side of it, Nick – man, I'd need you now." With a glance out the windshield he turned the key and drove off to the crime lab. He was almost sure he'd feel safer when he'd finally be able to strap some heat on. But then again, he didn't even know what to look out for at this point.

He found himself checking the rear view mirror repeatedly on his way to more familiar turfs.

tbc...

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Prologue Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6
Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12
Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18
Chapter 19 Chapter 20