CSI Redux:

Abyss

February 21, 1996

            The room seemed so very bright. Pristine white walls with splashes of pastel blue, yellow and pink reflected of the shiny, clear plastic of the incubators and the sparkling metal of the many life assisting machines. The NICU looked sterile but not cold. There was a warmth, a caring that radiated from the staff as they went about the room tending to their tiny patients.

            Grissom couldn’t begin to understand the feelings ricocheting wildly within his chest that felt too tight to breathe properly. His feet propelled him forward but Grissom was certain it was completely without any directive from his brain. His attention fully focused on the glossy case holding his son. The blue light above the incubator glinted of the smooth, clear corners adding a touch of enchantment to the medical devise.

            Grissom hadn’t realized he was holding his breath until he gasped at the first sight of the fragile child sleeping within the clear plastic crib.

            “He’s so small,” Grissom whispered to no one, taking in the sight of the tiny child.

            Grissom’s eyes took in everything.

            A dark shadow of barely there hair capped the sleeping baby’s head, making Grissom wonder if it would curl like his when it got longer or be more wavy like Sara’s. His eyes were covered to prevent oxygen blindness but Grissom pictured the dark brown of his mother’s eyes, causing a wistful smile to breach his lips momentarily. Traveling, his gaze took in the tiny chest working so very hard for each breath it took, the fluttering of the little heart visible through the tissue paper thin skin and various sticky pads covering the baby’s chest.

            The visible affirmation that his son lived had Grissom choking on his emotions, the full realization of everything hitting him square in the gut. Before that moment Grissom had loved the baby because he was an extension of Sara but like a bolt from the sky above his heart swelled, overfilled with love for the tiny life lying before him.

            Grissom placed the palm of his hand over his mouth, trying to capture the escaping sob rising in his throat. “Hello, son,” he said softly. “I’m your dad.”

            The baby’s little arms spasmed, as if acknowledging his father’s words before relaxing back against the white crib pad.

            Grissom felt Katie’s hand rubbing circles at his back. Turning to her, he asked, “Can I touch him?”

            “Sure,” she said softly, giving the nurse hovering nearby a minute nod.

            With the first gentle touch of his fingers against his son’s tiny arm, Grissom was in awe, absolute awe. The wonder of life, made from equal parts of him and Sara, through the love they shared with one another, slept before him. Their son, Grissom’s mind tried to encompass the depth and breadth of it as his index finger stroked ever so lightly along the baby’s delicate arm.

            Blinking wildly to stem the burning tears threatening to spill forth, Grissom asked in a voice gruff with emotion, “Is he going to be okay?”

            Katie’s reassuring hand rubbed her circles in his back more vigorously. The odds were stacked against the little boy and while she didn’t want to take away Grissom’s hope Katie also wanted him to be prepared for the possibility that the tragedy all parents fear might be inevitable.

            “He’s alive, Gil, he’s fighting,” Katie told him. “It’s a beginning.”

            Grissom’s eyes never left the baby. How he wished that he could fight this fight for his son, protect him, keep him from harm. Grissom felt powerless as he quietly shushed the baby as he spasmed once more in his sleep, his finger, broader than his son’s arm, continually stroking the tiny appendage in comfort and love. He solved problems everyday but was completely helpless to aid his baby.

            “Can you check on Sara for me?” Grissom asked, the blue of his eyes almost gray as he looked to Katie. “I want to stay with Jamie for a little while longer,” he explained, calling the baby by the name he and Sara had chosen.

            “Okay,” Katie nodded, patting him on the back, “sure.”

            Alone with the baby, Grissom prayed every prayer he had ever learned or heard repeatedly. He didn’t know how long he sat there next to the shiny, Plexiglas covered crib, an hour, two hours. Grissom wondered what dreams his son dreamt and hoped they were happy dreams. He was vaguely aware of when the nurse’s came to check on the baby, he even half-heartedly replied to their questions but his full attention was for his son until he felt the overpowering need to be with Sara.  

            *  *  *  *  *

February 24, 1996

            Grissom watched Sara through the glass doors of the NICU as she read a book of Aesop’s Fables to Jamie. One hand held the hardbacked book while the other stole through the incubator to gently stroke the baby’s tiny, leg. Even Sara’s long, delicate fingers seemed large next to the baby’s underdeveloped limbs as they traveled from hip to ankle over and over again.

            The first thirty hours of their son’s life had been harrowing. The many monitors used to keep an eye on the baby’s vital signs went of many times, scaring the new parents while the expert NICU staff quickly and effectively did their jobs. Most of the time the alarms were benign, a sticky pad coming loose, a lead wire pulled free after getting tangled in a little hand but twice it had been far more serious. Twice Jamie had simply stopped breathing on his own and twice he had been revived.

            “You just keep Leonard away from here,” Grissom said to the man standing next to him.

            “Don’t you worry about that,” Ike said, his gaze sliding between Grissom and Sara.

            Grissom turned steely eyes on Ike. If Sara had died on the dockyard Grissom was certain he would have lost it, as it was he was keeping it tightly together for her and their son. Jamie was still listed as critical and the best case scenario had him staying in the hospital for several more weeks.

            “She doesn’t want to leave the hospital without him,” Grissom revealed.

            “I know,” Ike replied. “But Katie doubts Sara will be well enough to discharge before week’s end.”

            “It probably won’t matter much whether she is admitted here or not,” Grissom gave a little huff and a half-hearted smile. “She won’t be far from Jamie…so, waiting room or hospital room, makes no difference to her.”

            Ike nodded. He had already taken care of Sara’s paperwork for both her medical leave and her maternity leave and John Gables had filed a formal complaint against Gary Leonard which was far less painful than what Ike had wanted to do. Trying to save face, Leonard had quickly given Sara credit for the fieldwork at the boatyard but it was nothing to the woman cooing softly to her tiny son.

            “Hey”

            The two men turned to see a tired looking Katie approach them, her white overcoat telling them both she was still on duty.

            “I thought I’d find you two here,” she said putting an arm around her husband’s waist and leaning her weary body into him.

            Grissom returned his attention to Sara and the baby, watching as she placed the book in her lap so that she could turn the page without using the hand stroking Jamie’s leg. He smiled at her as he thought of all her anxieties about being a good mother. She had yet to hold her baby but she already doted on him.

            “It’s home at the-“

            A flurry of movement around Sara and the Jamie caught all three’s attention as two nurses rushed over to the incubator covered baby, checking lines and monitors. Sara was quickly ushered away from the baby by a third nurse, her frightened eyes seeking Grissom as he rushed through the double doors to her side. Katie following close behind, took charge of the situation, the nurse’s giving the doctor quick, clipped answers as they opened the incubator to tiny baby.

            Katie examined the baby quickly. Her efficiency spoke well of her skill as she barked orders to the nurse’s. The baby’s vital signs were dropping quickly and even with the help of the ventilator it was becoming apparent the boy was in respiratory arrest.

            “O2 Sat?” Katie asked anyone, her attention focused on the top of Jamie’s brown head.

            “Eighty-six,” answered one of the nurse’s.

            Katie ran her hands gently across the top of the infant’s skull praying she wouldn’t find anything abnormal. The dusting of baby soft hair couldn’t cover the bulge developing on the child’s fontanels.

            “What’ve we got?” asked a tall man in his late forties with thinning blonde hair and dark eye glasses.

            Grissom recognized him as one of the neonatologists Katie had introduced to him but he couldn’t remember the man’s name. If pushed Grissom wasn’t certain he could remember his own name as he held tightly to Sara.

            Katie looked up from the baby her dark eyes forlorn as she sought Grissom’s gaze. It was only a split second but in that hanging moment, in that sliver of time that was the demarcation between before and after, happiness and sorrow, life and death, Grissom realized that his son was lost to him.

            “We have a grade four IVH, obvious swelling and patient is suffering respiratory distress,” Katie listed her attention returning to her tiny patient.

            At Katie’s words Grissom’s heart shattered into a million pieces even as he tried to hold on to hope. He had studied biology, he’d even done a stint as a coroner and he knew from Katie’s diagnosis that their baby had developed a serious bleed in his brain.

            “Get them outta here,” the one doctor barked, pointing to Sara and Grissom.

            At the touch of the nurse’s hand standing closest to Sara, Sara seemed to come alive, smacking the nurse’s hand away and screaming, “I’m not leaving him.”

            The nurse’s gaze implored Grissom to help her, no good would come if Sara stayed. Grissom wrapped his arms tighter around Sara, pulling her tightly to his chest, begging her to come with him before relenting and picking her up and carrying her through the glass doors.

            “Honey, please,” he begged again as Sara pushed against his chest, trying to break his hold on her.

            “No, damn you,” Sara cursed without looking at him. “He needs me…he needs me.”

            Grissom held fast to Sara, desperate to keep hold of her. “Sara,” he choked, misery seeping into every pore of his being.

            Time seemed to stand still and yet it was over far too soon. The defeated slump of  the doctor as he approached them was nearly as telling as the tears streaming down Katie’s face. Somewhere in some recess of Grissom’s numb mind he could see and feel Sara shaking her head vigorously, adamantly denying the reality of the doctor’s words before they were spoken.

            “No,” she moaned over and over again with each shake of her head.

            “I’m sorry,” the doctor began, “We-“

            Sara slumped in Grissom’s arms, cutting off anything else the doctor was prepared to say. Grissom wasn’t sure who helped him Sara; he wasn’t even certain if his heart still beat. The world had suddenly gone cold and gray for him and he was simply numb to it all.

            “Gil?”

            “Gil?”

            Grissom turned vacant blue eyes on the woman standing before him.

            “Yes,” he answered Katie, her worried gaze barely registering in his mind.

            Katie took his arm, trying to steer him in the direction the nurse’s had taken Sara.

            “Come on, sweetie,” she said, hoping to lead him away from the tragedy.

            Grissom pulled his arm from Katie’s grasp. It wasn’t harsh; he simply stepped away from her, pulling his arm with him.

            “No,” he whispered, his voice raw with unshed tears. “I want to see him.”

            Katie’s worried gaze traveled to her husband who stood nearby, ready to help his friend when the full reality of the situation sank in. Katie hesitated before finally nodding. Taking Grissom’s arm once more, she led him to the tiny crib where his son lay, the sticky tabs that had monitored him in life had been removed during the efforts to resuscitate him, leaving the tiny body bare.

            Grissom grimaced when his eyes fell on the motionless chest of his son. The quick rise and fall of his chest and the tiny flutter of the baby’s heart absent, causing a physical ache to twist painfully in Grissom’s chest.

            “Please,” Grissom whispered, his forlorn gaze turning to Katie. “Please, can I hold him?”

            He had never been allowed to hold his son in life but felt a deep, deep need to hold him before he was truly gone from him.

            “Yes,” Katie told him.

            Even though the baby would never feel cold again, Grissom pulled a receiving blanket from a nearby cart and wrapped his son in it. Taking the still child over to a rocking chair set up in the corner of the room, Grissom sat with the tiny bundle in his arms and began to rock. Words were softly spoken and promises given between father and son as Grissom said goodbye to their son.

            Standing, he carried the baby to Katie, placing him gently in her arms. “Please…I don’t want him to…be alone, just yet,” he told her his voice almost disappearing.

            Katie just nodded, unable to speak as tears streaked down her face. She would take care of his baby, Grissom had no doubt. With a wan smile, Grissom placed a kiss on the baby’s forehead before leaving.

            Sara, his heart ached for his loss but maybe just a little bit more for hers. Aww, Sara, honey. What are we going to do? Grissom silently agonized as he went in search of his wife.