Chapter Three
A doctor walked through the doors, a solemn expression on his face as he asked for the family of Sara Sidle.
They rose as a group and moved to greet the doctor.
"You're all relatives of Sara Sidle?" the doctor asked, incredulously, as he stared at the CSIs.
Nick spoke on behalf of the group; "No, we work with her. Her husband is- wait has anyone called Grissom?"
At the shake of their heads, Greg moved away from the group to attempt to contact his former boss.
His hand shook as he dialled the all too familiar number, one he knew by heart, but that he had never wished to have to call under these circumstances. Waiting as the phone rang, he dragged his fingers through his messy hair. He spoke quickly and quietly to his former boss who promised to be there as soon as possible.
Moving back over to the group, Greg stuffed his phone into his pocket and laid a reassuring hand on Morgan's back as she stood like a statue listening intently to Sara's doctor as he gave them an update on her status.
"She's stable," he began, "Which right now is a very positive thing. We're going to operate shortly to remove the bullet and repair any internal damage. Right now the main concern is the head injury Ms Sidle sustained from the fall. We've medically induced a coma to prevent further damage and to keep her stabilized until we can open her up and she is being taken down in a moment for a head CT to establish if there's any brain damage. Once I know more, I'll come and let you know."
"Thank you, doctor." Russell responded, shaking Dr. Matthews hand on behalf of the stunned group of CSIs.
"Is she going to be OK? I mean, what are the odds?" Morgan asked, speaking so quietly that had the room not already been deadly silent she would not have been heard.
"I am hopeful that we will be able to remove the bullet and repair the damage to her abdominal area. As for the damage to her brain... I cannot be certain until the CT scan has been performed, but I can see that Ms. Sidle is a fighter, and we have our best neurologists standing by in case surgery is required."
"Can we see her before the surgery?" Finn asked.
"I can give you two minutes with her, but then we need to get her upstairs." The doctor replied, moving towards the door with the group close behind.
The CSIs came to an abrupt stop upon arriving at Sara's room. Hesitantly, Greg opened the door and cautiously made his way to Sara's side. Her skin was covered in bruises from the fall and the little flesh unaffected was ghostly pale. Bar the cuts and scratches and stark white bandages, she looked almost angelic. He noted the number of tubes snaking around her battered skin, one coming from her nose, another inserted into her mouth breathing for her and various smaller tubes coming from her arm. The words of the doctor floated around his head. Comatose. Surgery. Head Injury. Brain Damage. Hopeful. Uncertain.
Carefully, as though holding a glass object, he lifted her right hand and wrapped his warm fingers around her freezing cold ones, trying to send her a message that he was there, in what felt like a pitiful gesture. Nick perched on the other side of Sara, brushing a loose strand of hair away from her face and muttering soothing words of comfort; more for himself than for his wounded friend.
The rest of the group stood silently tablo at the foot of the bed, not wanting to interrupt this rather beautiful scene of their colleagues with their surrogate sister.
Dr. Matthews, true to his word, gave them a few moments of privacy before doctors and nurses alike began rushing around the bedside, checking stats and ushering the gang out of the door.
With one last look at their broken friend, the group moved back towards the relative's room and waited.
Gil Grissom woke with a start. Disorientated, he looked for the source of the disturbance to his slumber. The guilty party was his cell phone, the caller ID reading 'Greg Sanders'.
A thousand dreadful thoughts filled his mind, the majority about his beloved Sara, each worse than the last, as he reached out a hand to grab the vibrating object.
"Grissom." He hesitantly greeted.
"Uh, hey, boss, it's Greg. I, uh, need to tell you something - something important."
Grissom didn't miss a beat before asking, with a concern filled voice, "Is Sara OK?"
Something about Greg's tone was off. His usual calm, slightly nervous tone was gone and in its place was an apprehensive, timid, almost scared pitch.
"There's been an accident... Sara's hurt... it's pretty bad; you need to get back here."Greg gushed, ending with a shaky breath as he waited, trying to guess his pretty unpredictable ex-boss' tone.
Greg needn't have worried about an outburst, for his former mentor simply squeaked out a meagre "I'll be on the next flight out" and hung up.
Grissom wasted no time in assembling a few of his belongings; his passport, his phone and a book that he had bought as a gift for Sara on a whim, all of which flew into a small bag and within twelve minutes of the phone call he had booked a seat on the next available flight to Vegas and was sat in his Jeep speedily making his way down the winding roads towards the city.
He arrived at the airport in a daze. If not for the autopilot ingrained into his brain, he would not have been able to make his way through the security checks and onto the small passenger plane that would take him to his wife- no, ex-wife...
A/N: Okay, so I have some major apologising to do! Firstly, I have had a whole block of this ready to post for so long, but life got in the way! Exams and other school commitments took up most of my time and then I was really ill, so I didn't have much time to post. Anyway, I'm back at school tomorrow, sitting my 10th exam (only 7 more after that, woo!) so I'm going to treat you to two, maybe even three chapters ;) Enjoy and please review! It makes me so happy to read them and I really appreciate you taking a few moments out of your day to drop me a line :)