I know a lot of you probably thought that I had abandoned this story, but I assure you I haven't. Real life has been hectic lately especially since I am getting a lot more hours at work lately, which interferes with how much time i have to write.

I do plan on finishing this story though, and even have ideas for more stories after this one is complete. I already have planned out what will happen in the next few chapters. We should be nearing the end of the story.

Anyway, finally here is chapter six. I will try to get the next chapters finished a lot sooner. :)

Chapter Six

Nick Stokes paced back and forth through the waiting room of the Desert Palms Hospital anxiously waiting for news of Greg's condition. It had been over an hour since he was released from his own examination.

"Nick," Warrick rushed toward him. "Are you alright? What happened?"

"I'm fine, I don't know about Greg though, they won't tell me anything. He was unconscious when we were brought in. Rick he was covered in blood."

"He'll be fine," Warrick tried to reassure him.

"Nicky," Catherine said as she and Grissom rushed up to them. "Are you alright? Where's Greg?"

"I'm fine," he repeated. "They're still working on Greg. I haven't heard anything yet. He... he hadn't regained consciousness when we were brought here."

"Nick, you don't look fine. Your nose is swollen and you have some cuts and bruises on your face and arms. What the hell happened," Catherine demanded.

"It's just a fractured nose and some minor cuts and bruises," Nick shook his head.

"The Mount Charleston Police are having Greg's car towed to the Crime Lab. They said you requested it. What's going on Nick," Grissom questioned sternly.

"I think something was wrong with Greg's car. The brakes weren't working. Before we crashed he was also having trouble steering. Grissom, something wasn't right, we were not going downhill but the car continued to accelerate and I know Greg's foot was on the brake pedal," Nick explained.

"You think his car was tampered with," Catherine inquired.

Nick nodded his head. Before he could say anything else Warrick spoke. "You think it was his stalker don't you?"

"What stalker? Are you talking about Nigel Crane?" Catherine questioned.

"No, someone was stalking Greg," Nick said.

"What?" Catherine's eyes widened.

"Nick Stokes," A tall thin man wearing a white lab coat asked as he entered the waiting area.

"Yeah, that's me," Nick said turning his focus on the doctor. He had gray hair that was cut very short making the wrinkles on his forehead visible. Nick remembered seeing the man in the hospital before while he was checking on an attempted murder victim, but could not remember his name.

"I am Doctor Williamson," he supplied.

"How's Greg," Nick immediately asked as he shook the man's hand.

"Mr. Sanders was very lucky. Most of his injuries were not serious. He has several minor cuts, as well as some that required stitches. We gave him a total of 11 stitches. He has several bruises, a fractured nose, dislocated shoulder, and sprained wrist. His most severe injury was a deep gash on his forehead, which required five stitches and gave him a concussion. He was also malnourished when he was brought in. We have him on pain meds and fluids for malnourishment right now. He hasn't regained consciousness yet, although he should within the next hour. We are going to keep him here a couple of hours at least for observation."

Nick closed his eyes and let out a sigh of relief. He remembered when Greg had first gotten his car. He, Warrick, and a lot of the lab techs had teased him about getting a family car instead of a sports car like they would have expected of him. Nick now was immensely grateful Greg had chosen the safer car over the Mustang the younger man had also been looking at. "Thank you Dr. Williamson," he finally said. "Can I see him?"

"Yes, follow me," the doctor nodded.

"Nick, you are going to have to give us a statement about what happened," Grissom told him. "After you see Greg, I want you to come back to the lab. We'll be processing Greg's car."

"I'll catch a ride with Gris," Warrick pulled out his car keys from his pocket. "Here you can bring my car to the lab when you're done here."

Nick nodded, caught the keys his taller co-worker had tossed at him, and continued to follow the doctor to Greg's recovery room. He did not care about giving a statement right now; he just wanted to see with his own eyes that Greg really was alright. When he entered the room Greg was laying on his back with his eyes closed looking much better than when he had last seen him. The blood had been cleaned off his face. A bandage covered the left side of his forehead. Small cuts and bruises peppered the left side of his face, neck and what he could see of his left arm that wasn't covered by a splint or a sling. Greg's nose was also bruised and slightly swollen.

"Don't stay too long, he needs to rest," Doctor Williamson told him. "We'll call you when Mr. Sanders can go home."

"Thank you," he nodded. As the doctor left the room Nick walked closer to the bed and sat down in the chair beside the bed. He reached out and took Greg's uninjured right hand in his hand.

Greg slowly opened his eyes and grinned when he looked up at Nick. "You're ok?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. You scared me though, how do you feel?"

"Fine right now," Greg grinned again. "The meds are working," he spoke softly and seemed to fight to keep his eyes open. "Do you know when I can get out of here? I hate hospitals."

"I know; I remember all of your complaining after the lab explosion," Nick grinned. "Your doctor wants to keep you for a couple of hours for observation."

"Don't need observation," Greg said as his eyes closed for a few seconds before opening again.

"Just sleep and by the time you wake up it'll be time to get out of here," he assured the younger man.

"I'm sorry I messed up our date," Greg's words were slightly slurred.

"Don't worry about it, I'm just glad you're alright man," Nick squeezed Greg's hand gently. "We'll have plenty of time after you feel better."

Greg had already drifted off to sleep again. Nick sat with him for 30 minutes watching him sleep before he finally left to go to the lab. He had a strange feeling that he shouldn't leave, that he should just sit with Greg until he was ready to be released.

Warrick sat silently in the break room trying not to think about Greg, but failing. He could not help but feel guilty. He felt he should have talked to the younger man about his stalker sooner. If he would have told Greg to talk to Grissom or Brass sooner or just went to one of them himself maybe they could have stopped the man before he could hurt Greg.

"Hey man," Nick said entering the break room looking very tired. "I just finished giving Brass my statement."

"Hey, how's Greg doing," Warrick asked as Nick walked straight to the coffee pot and began pouring himself a cup of the hot liquid.

"He's resting right now. His doctors will call when they're ready to release him." Nick sat across the table from Warrick. "So I thought you guys were checking out Greg's car?"

"Yeah, there was some kind of mix up. We're still waiting for the car to be delivered; I think they sent it to the wrong town before realizing it was supposed to be sent to Vegas. Grissom and Sara went to a crime scene off the strip; an assault case. He said you should help me when the car gets here. Although you look really tired man, if you want to go and take a nap I'll be fine."

"No, no, I'm fine I just have a headache. I want to help catch this guy so we can lock him up and Greg can get on with his life," Nick took a drink his coffee.

"Yeah man, we all want this guy caught. None of us are going to give up until Greg is safe."

"I know," Nick nodded. "So where did Catherine go?"

"Gris sent her home to see Lindsey since the car wasn't here anyway. She said she'll call later."

Nick nodded as he absentmindedly slid his finger back and forth over the rim of the coffee cup while images of Greg Bloodied and unconscious replayed in his mind.

Two hours later, a day shift lab tech that Warrick didn't remember meeting before entered the room and informed them the car had arrived and was waiting for them in the garage.

"Finally," Warrick said as he stood up. After waking up his friend who had fallen asleep at the table he walked out of the break room. Nick followed him slowly.

Once they entered the garage, Warrick whistled upon seeing the state of Greg's car. "Wow," he said. "Greg's lucky he wasn't hurt worse, there's a lot of damage on the driver's side." He immediately noticed the dried blood on the inside driver's side door and the steering wheel.

"Yeah," Nick nodded as he looked over the damage to the driver's side of the car that he had not been able to see when the vehicle was in the ditch. The entire driver's side was dented; the glass in the front and rear drier's side windows were both smashed out, and the left side of the front windshield was full of spider web cracks. The rear and passenger side windows, however, had not sustained any damage. "The car was still in the ditch when they got Greg out. They had to get him out through the passenger side."

Warrick nodded as he stood in front of the car. "Could you pop the hood for me?"

Warrick's question had broken him out of his memories of the crash. He shook his head and reached inside the car through the driver's side window and pulled the latch to release the hood.

Warrick took a deep breath and opened the hood. He hoped they did not find any signs of tampering on the car; maybe that would mean that Greg wasn't really being stalked by his girlfriend's psychotic ex and was just being paranoid. He immediately noticed the layer of engine dust that covered the engine. Oddly an out of place device lacking engine dust was attached to the main wiring harness. Wires lead from the device to the ABS box, the intake, and the steering column. "Damn," he spoke as he grabbed his camera from his near by kit and snapped a few pictures of the device. "There's a lockout box here."

"A lockout box," Nick repeated as he peered over Warrick's shoulder to examine the foreign device for himself.

"I'm going to call and give Grissom a heads up, why don't you see if you can get any prints off that thing," Warrick told him.

Nick nodded and walked over to his kit while Warrick pulled out his cell phone.

"Hey Gris," Warrick spoke into the phone. "Yeah, it finally arrived. There's a lockout box in the engine. It's affixed to the wiring harness. There are wires leading to the ABS box that look like they were rigged to trick the box into believing the brakes were not being applied even though they were. The wires leading to the intake tricked the car to accelerate when the throttle wasn't being applied. And the wires going to the steering column locked the steering wheel when the box was activated. This guy knew what he was doing," Warrick nodded his head as he listened to his boss' response. "Alright; that's great. Yeah, I'll let him know."

Nick lifted a second print off the lockout box and turned to look at Warrick as he snapped his cell phone closed. He looked at his friend expectantly.

"Grissom was at the hospital to process the victim of his assault case and stopped to see Greg. He said that the nurses were trying to get a hold of you because Greg's ready to be discharged but they only got your voice mail. Grissom is going to take him home as soon as he's dressed and the discharge papers are done. He wants us to call Brass and have him send a couple police officers to Greg's place to make sure his stalker doesn't come after him again," Warrick explained.

As he listened to his friend speak, Nick pulled out his cell phone from his pocket and sighed. "Damn, batteries dead. I forgot to put it on the charger," Nick complained. "You want to get these prints to Jacqui and I'll call Brass," Nick asked picking up the phone in the garage.

"Yeah, sure man."

An hour later Grissom entered the print lab to find Nick, Warrick, and Sara in the finger print lab with Jacqui Franco, "Anything yet?"

"Yeah, we just got the results. His name is John Powell he was arrested in Salt Lake City for assaulting his girlfriend Amanda Spencer five years ago. She had a restraining order against him. He spent two months in jail for the assault then a year later he nearly killed Amanda who left Salt Lake City and moved to Seattle to get away from him; he stabbed her in the abdomen but a friend found her in time. She told the police that John Powel tried to kill her, but he had escaped and is still at large. It says he's an electrician," Warrick read from the computer screen. "He'd definitely know how to rig the lock out box to Greg's car."

"I think Lisa is an alias of Amanda Spencer. Greg mentioned that Lisa kept moving to different location, but her ex just kept finding her, it would make sense that she would change her name to try to get away from him," Nick said.

"Yes," Grissom nodded. "Call Brass and have him put an APB out on John Powel."

"We already did we also told him what kind of car he was driving," Sara said.

"We were just about to go to Nick's house to see how Greg was doing," Warrick added.

"Nick's house," Grissom asked looking curiously between Warrick and Nick.

"Yeah, Greg has been staying at my house for the past few days. It's safer at my place anyway I have an alarm system," Nick explained. He had it installed after his own stalker incident. "I told Brass to have the police officers go to my place."

Grissom's eyes widened and looked worried, it was the most emotion that Nick had seen on the supervisor's face in a long time and it sent a chill down his spine. "I took Greg to his apartment."

TBC