A/N: Here's Chapter 2! Please review! (Yes, that did rhyme on purpose) (:

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 2

"What do you mean he's gone?" Detective D.B. Russell nearly screamed into the phone.

"He just disappeared, I'm really sorry." The officer stammered out.

"Well you should be sorry, because you just lost your job. Your only job was to watch him." Russell hung up the phone furiously, not even giving the man on the other line a chance to respond.

D.B. hadn't been working for the LVPD for very long, but that didn't mean that he didn't care about the people he worked with.

And he was certainly not looking forward to telling the people that Nick had worked with for well over ten years that the man they all knew and loved was missing.

But he had to, because he needed their help. Russell was prepared to get everyone to go out and help look for, and hopefully find, Nick.

So he called an emergency meeting, and within minutes his whole team was huddled around the table in the break room. "There's no easy way to tell you all this, so I'm just gonna spit it out. Nick is missing. He was at a crime scene with just David and another officer, who claims that he just 'disappeared'. But people don't just disappear so I need you all to come with me to process the crime scene and help look for him." D.B. rattled off, his voice remaining even. He was worried about how his team would react, but nothing prepared him for how Catherine responded.

"Really Nicky? Why is it always you? I'm really getting sick of having to find you, living on just the mere hope that you're alive! I mean seriously, you're eventually going to run out of luck and I don't really want to be around when it happens!" Catherine shouted to no one in particular. She knew that Nick couldn't hear her, but she was just so frustrated. How did he always get himself into these situations?

"Catherine, I need you to calm down. We're going to find him, but we just have to work together. We're gonna get him back." D.B. responded, his voice a little shakier now.

"Yeah, maybe. But at what cost? Because I certainly don't think he can make it, mentally, through something else like this again!" Catherine spat back, her eyes beginning to well up with tears.

"What do you mean something like this again?" D.B. asked, genuinely curious.

Seeing that Catherine was now just struggling to fight back tears, Greg spoke up, "About seven or so years ago, Nick was kidnapped and buried alive, almost eaten alive by fire ants. And we found him just before he was about to blow his brains out. He was messed up for a really long time. And just a few years before that, he had a stalker that was living in his attic and shoved him out of a window. And only a couple of years ago he was shot, then blown up. He really just doesn't have the best of luck, and Catherine's right, he is eventually going to run out of what little 'luck' he does have."

"And why didn't I know about any of this? I'm sure it affects his work performance during certain cases, I really should have known." D.B. said, but not too harshly.

"He didn't want anyone to know. He's embarrassed, ashamed of all the things that have gone wrong in his life. And he doesn't let his past affect his work, at least not recently anyways." Greg told the older man.

"Alright, well we need to get out to the crime scene and start finding some answers, because I am not going to let Nick die on my watch." D.B. said, and with that, everyone got up and headed to their cars.

All of them sped as fast as they could to get to the crime scene. Brass was waiting for them when they arrived. "I'm really getting sick of all this." That was all that Brass said when Catherine approached him.

"Me too, Brass. Me too." She replied, and then headed into the alley that the victim was found in to see where Nick might have been taken from.

Greg joined her, while Sara began to question David and the officer on scene.

So D.B. decided to start looking in areas around the scene for any clues. He started with the alleyway to the right of the one that the body was found in. No luck.

So he then chose the alleyway to the left of the body-containing alley. He rummaged through all of the garbage and old food that littered the ground, and still could not find anything useful. He was about to give up hope, when he noticed a large blue tarp toward the end of the deep, dark alley.

At first he didn't think much of it, but why would one be here? So he walked closer to it, counted to three in his head, and proceeded to rip the tarp away from the ground to see if anything lie beneath it.

And something sure did.

In all of his career, he had never laid eyes upon a scene this disturbing. Sure he had seen things much more gruesome and brutal, but he had never seen one of his coworkers, one of his own, in such a state as this.

The entire right side of Nick's head and face were soaked with blood. His face had swollen up similarly to your average balloon, and basically all of the skin covering his face had taken on a deep purple color.

All D.B. could do was check for a pulse. He brought his fingers up the man's neck, and felt a throbbing, and he had never been so happy in his life. It was a very weak pulse, but a pulse nonetheless.

As soon as Russell pulled his hand away, Nick twitched a little bit. "Nick? Nick can you hear me? Everything's going to be alright." D.B. told him, although he wasn't quite sure he believed it himself. Nick was in bad shape. But according to his coworkers, his friends, he could pull through just about anything.

Nick made a noise, it sounded like a cross between a whimper and a scream, and then he outstretched his hand, looking for something to grab. D.B. grasped his hand, and immediately cried out, "I need some help over here!"

Brass was the first to hear him, and he immediately began to sprint to where D.B.'s voice had come from. He saw the man crouching at the end of the alley, and began to sprint faster. He reached his destination, and glanced over Russell's shoulder. He barely even reacted. He just had this look of total shock and worry on his face, and then he lifted his walkie talkie to his mouth, "I need an ambulance here ASAP." And then he let the device hit the floor.

"He's alive right? Right?" Brass asked the man who was now beside him.

"Yes, he has a pulse but it's very weak. That ambulance better come fast." Nick squeezed D.B.'s hand a little harder at those words. Nick did not want to die. He had been through too much to not come out on the other side of this one.

It only took a few minutes for the sound of sirens to be heard, and by this time, Nick had drifted off into unconsciousness again. The paramedics put him on the stretcher and started rambling things off that sounded like they were in another language.

D.B. and Brass followed closely behind them, and found the rest of the team crowded around the ambulance when they walked up to it.

"Oh god Nicky." Catherine cried out when she saw her beloved friends condition.

"Catherine, you go with him. I'm sure he'd like to see you when he wakes up rather than me." D.B. told the woman who now had tears running down her face.

She just nodded, not being able to choke out any words. She touched Russell's shoulder as she hopped into the back of the ambulance, and he took this as a thank you.

The ambulance pulled away, leaving the rest of the team to just watch it drive off into the night. "Come on guys, this scene isn't going to process itself." D.B. said as nicely as he possibly could. He knew that these guys did not want to work right now, even he himself didn't. But it's what had to be done in order to find out who did this to Nick.

In the ambulance, Catherine was squeezing Nick's hand tighter than she thought possible, and she did not let go until they arrived at the hospital and she was told to wait in the waiting area while they took Nick to the back.

The time ticked by so slowly that she thought she would go insane, until a doctor came into the waiting room and simply said, "Nick Stokes?"

Catherine shot up out of her chair and raced over towards the man. "How is he?"

"Well, he's certainly not in ideal condition, but he is going to live." The Doctor said as he watched Catherine let out a huge sigh of relief. "But he is going to suffer some rather serious brain damage because of this. He took most of the blows to the right side of the head, so the entire left side of his body is going to be very weak. He'll walk with a limp for quite some time, but it should get better with physical therapy. He will also most likely have a speech impediment of some degree. But again, this can get better with therapy. His jaw is also broken, we've wired it shut for the time being. He's in pretty rough shape, but he seems like a strong guy, I think he'll pull through. Would you like to see him?"

Catherine just nodded vigorously. That was a lot of information to take in, and she wasn't even sure that she could handle it. This was going to completely destroy Nick's life, change his whole world. He'd already been through enough, why does he have to go through more?

The doctor led her to a private room toward the back of the hospital, and opened the door for her.

When she walked in, her breath was taken away. His face was even more swollen than before, and he looked so broken just lying in that bed.

She pulled up a chair and sat at his bedside, grasping his hand tightly. She didn't know if he could feel it, but if he could she just wanted him to know that someone was there.

The doctor had left, so it was just Nick and Catherine in the room. "Nicky? Can you hear me?"

No response.

"Don't you worry about a thing Nick. We're gonna get you through this. Together, that's what family's for, right?"

As if on cue, the rest of the team piled in through the door, their faces filled with looks of sorrow as their eyes fell upon their good friend Nick Stokes.

It was gonna be a bumpy ride.

I really hope you liked it! And if you did, REVIEW! I'll love you! (: And again, I would really like to stress the fact that I am not a doctor, so most of this is probably horribly inaccurate. So sorry. Bye! (: