Quiet voices penetrated his dark, warm blanket of sleep. Nick could hear them, but not what they said, only the vague sounds infiltrating his consciousness. He wasn't ready to try to understand what words meant.
One voice, a female voice, which spoke for a short time, was foreign. Her voice was kind, but to him it sounded distressing. Who was she and why was she so close to him?
A low, rumbling voice responded, speaking for a few moments. He knew this sound, this voice was one he heard often. It spoke in an unfamiliar tone, one he rarely heard from this voice; it sounded stressed, anxious.
Unbidden, the words he had last heard this voice speak floated into his mind. "Lay still. Lay still. It's okay. It's okay…"
Little legs, as thin as hairs, climbing all over him…Burning, pinching as little pieces of flesh are torn away…A hand on his chest, trapping him there, in that hell…
Nick woke with a start. "No! No no no no!" He raised an arm, trying to brush off the thousands of ants that were crawling all over him, eating him alive, as he struggled to sit up.
"Nick! It's okay, it's okay." A hand caught his, preventing him from moving. Another hand gently pushed on his shoulder, holding him back. "You're okay now. No ants, see? It's okay now."
Nick blinked and stared at the blurry form of Warrick leaning over him. He shrunk away. Too close, too close…
Warrick sat back, seeming to understand. "Okay, you're okay." He didn't let go of Nick's hand, something Nick was grateful for. He concentrated on breathing. When he felt he had gotten that under control, he attempted to speak.
"What-?" Nick couldn't formulate the questions he needed to ask, had to know the answers to. A white fog was filling his mind, wrapping itself around his words, strangling them until they vanished and he was left with only a single word to describe his fear and confusion. His eyes begged Warrick to understand anyway, to tell him what was happening.
"It's okay, man. You're in the hospital. You've been here for two days. The doctor sedated you, to let your system recover a bit," Warrick explained in the same soothing voice.
Nick nodded. With great effort, he focused only on Warrick, pushing away the haunting memories and clinging to that familiar voice after so many hours of silence.
"That's it. Just lie still. You're okay, Nicky. Everybody's gonna be real happy that you finally graced us with your presence," Warrick said, grinning a little. "They had to go back to work, but they've been here almost the whole time. How do you feel, now?"
Nick waited for a moment, finally saying the first word that pulled through the fog in his brain. "Tired."
"Two days' rest wasn't enough, huh?" Warrick smiled a little, and squeezed his hand. "Okay, man, get your beauty sleep."
Nick smiled a little, then closed his eyes and allowed himself to fall back under that warm blanket of sleep.
Warrick sighed tiredly and rubbed his eyes. He had been in the same uncomfortable hospital chair next to Nick's bed for two days now, ever since they brought him into the ER.
The gurney crashed through the doors to the emergency room as the paramedics ran in, calling out terms to the doctors.
"BP 150 over 90!"
"Pulse is 160!"
The continued shouts of numbers and medications barely registered with Warrick, as he focused solely on his best friend lying on a bed in the middle of the emergency room. Nick, though considerably weakened, clung to his hand with incredible force and insistence.
"Sir. Sir! You need to leave." A nurse pulled on Warrick's free arm, attempting to detach him. He jerked his arm away and turned back to Nick.
"Sir! You can't be in here. You need to leave," the nurse persisted, tugging Warrick's hand from Nick's grasp and pushing Warrick toward the door.
"No!" Nick gasped, beginning to thrash about, preventing the doctors from giving him any of the much-needed medication.
"Nick!" Warrick shoved past the nurse and grasped Nick's hand again. "It's okay, buddy. It's okay, it's okay. Lay still. It's okay."
Now, after checking that the other CSI was asleep, Warrick stepped out into the hall and flipped open his phone. He punched a few buttons and waited for his supervisor to pick up.
"Grissom," Grissom's calm voice stated.
"Gris, he woke up."
"How is he?"
"A bit out of it. He didn't stay awake very long. But…he thought he was still there, man. He thought he was still in that damned box…"
"That's to be expected, Warrick. After a trauma, the mind often replays events in an attempt to deal with them." Grissom sounded understanding, yet detached.
"I know, Gris, but…" Warrick trailed off, looking back into the room at Nick's sleeping form. He would never be able to describe the look of intense fear and desperation in Nick's eyes.
"Warrick, why don't you go home? You need to get some sleep. Catherine is on her way to the hospital, she'll stay with Nick."
Warrick nodded tiredly, then stopped as he realized that Grissom couldn't see him. "Yeah. Okay."
"Warrick?"
"Yeah?"
"He's going to be okay."
Nick scowled at the bandages covering his arms. He felt like a mummy, wrapped as he was in white gauze. They had taken him off of most of the medications he had been on, leaving him a bit more aware than he would have liked.
He wanted to get out of the freaking hospital and go home. He'd already been here for three days. And yes, he was unconscious for two of them, but that didn't mean he hadn't been here for three days. He was tired, achy, and just generally uncomfortable. His skin burned and itched from the thousands of bites he had sustained. His wrist was fractured and his shoulder dislocated from hitting the ground when the team pulled him out of the hole. He wished he was home in his own bed, or on his own couch, instead of in this stupid, weird-smelling room.
The doctor told him he could go home in a couple days, when she was sure the bites weren't getting infected. At this statement, he had glared at the bags of liquid that were draining into his body through the IV in his hand. The doctor, picking up on this, had said, "We are giving you antibiotics to combat possible infections. I just want to be sure. A few more days can't hurt."
Oh, but they could. He didn't want to lie on his back anymore. God only knew he had had enough of that. But thanks to the many machines they had him attached to, he couldn't lay any other way.
But the very worst part was the boredom. Catherine had brought him a couple of books to read, but he had finished those hours ago. The rest of the team had gone back to the lab, though, leaving him alone. His parents had left that morning, because they needed to return to work. Now he was left alone, with nothing to do. And with nothing to occupy his mind, he felt it drifting back toward the darkness of sleep, towards the things he was trying not to remember…
"Hi CSI guy…"
Nick jerked awake again, knocking loose one of the machines which promptly began to bleep, as he looked around, looking for some assurance that he was safe. A bland hospital room stared back at him. You imagined it. It didn't happen. Stop thinking about it! he berated himself. He was alone; at least until some employee of the hospital became aware that the little monitor next to his bed was thoroughly convinced he was dead.
He, however, knew different, as his heart currently felt as though it was trying to pound its way right out of his chest. Stop it. Calm down. Now. His breathing was rapid and irregular.
A nurse rushed in, having heard the machine raise the alarm. She stopped at the sight of Nick frowning contemptuously at the machine.
With a sigh, the nurse walked over and began to reattach the machine. "Mr. Stokes, what in heaven's name are you doing that's making these machines go off every ten minutes?"
"Nothing," Nick said sullenly. To his surprise, the nurse sat down in the chair next to his bed.
"If you were doing nothing, I wouldn't have been in here five times in the last hour. Mr. Stokes, are you having panic attacks?"
"Call me Nick, please," Nick said, attempting to avoid a question he didn't know how to answer. Or maybe he just didn't want to answer.
"All right. Nick, if you are having panic attacks, I need to know." The nurse eyed him suspiciously.
"I'm not having panic attacks. I just...sometimes think of things I don't want to think about." Nick looked down as he spoke, embarrassed at the admittance.
"Mmmm. It's nothing to be ashamed of, Nick. You went through a lot. I'm going to talk to the doctor and see if we can get you some medication to help with your anxiety, okay?" She stood to leave. "Try to sleep now, okay? It's after ten already."
Nick nodded noncommittally. The truth was, he wasn't able to sleep. He had to stay focused so his thoughts wouldn't drift…
He sighed loudly. He didn't want to be here. He began to glower at the TV, which was turned off. It deserved to be glared at, too. How dare it be turned off when he so desperately needed distraction?