ummm... chapter two??
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CHAPTER TWO: The solution
After having spent a delightful evening in each other's arms the night before, both Nick and Greg were loath to get up. Nick could sense this could potentially become a problem, but who in their right mind would really want to get up to go to a work where all they see every day is people at the worst time of their lives, when the evening had been spent entwined with a hard, warm body. Nick's pager went off right as Greg's alarm sounded, not simply waking them but shocking them into wakefulness. Groaning, Nick looked at his pager while Greg slapped blindly at his alarm, attempting to shut it off.
Sara. Of course it had to be Sara paging him even before he's due to work. He knew it couldn't be too pertinent since the page wasn't from Grissom, but he knew he should get up and get going anyway.
Greg was the first one up, always was. The phrase "bright-eyed and bushy-tailed" didn't quite cover Greg's level of energy right after waking. Everyone at the lab always thought he was so energetic because of the coffee he drank, but the Blue Hawaiian was just the icing on top. In reality, giving Greg coffee was like giving a kid espresso and a puppy - not good. He whipped the sheets off the bed, hoping to get Nick up, but Nick just muttered something darkly and yanked the sheets back. Greg didn't put up a fight: Nick was by far stronger than he was, especially when it came to covers. Shrugging, Greg turned and went into the bathroom to start a shower. He grabbed one of the big fluffy bath sheets from the rack and set it on the floor near the shower. This drove Nick nuts, but Greg's thinking was that that way he wouldn't have to walk his dripping, freezing ass over to the towel rack; much more convenient this way.
He turned the water on, making it almost too hot to stand, and stepped in. He grabbed the soap and slowly slathered it on, savoring the comforting feeling of the warm water and of cleanliness. He was just starting on his face when he thought he heard Nick's feet pad from the bed into the bathroom. He knew he heard Nick stumble over the bath sheet and curse quietly, but he pretended not to hear, continuing with his scrubbing. Then there was a warm body pressed against his back and soft lips laying kisses along his jawline.
He turned into Nick's inviting arms and sighed. This always felt so right, these big strong arms wrapped around him tightly, pressing him into that wonderfully sculpted chest. Nick was planting soft, almost butterfly kisses all over his cheeks and neck, making Greg's knees weak. Nick slowly backed him up till his butt hit the tile, making Greg shiver with the sudden temperature change.
"Good morning," Nick rumbled, grinding his crotch into Greg's with just enough pressure to get Greg excited. Greg gasped quietly, trying his hardest not to give it away just how aroused he was getting, even though his efforts were fruitless given the conditions... down under. He tried to fight it, pushing weakly at Nick's waist to get him to pull away, but Nick had more on his mind - he wouldn't give up that easily.
Nick slipped his hand between their bodies, fingertips trailing lightly across the tip of Greg's cock, making Greg shiver. Nick's thumb traced through the bead of precum that was there, rubbing it around the head before bringing his thumb to his mouth and sucking it clean. He trailed his fingers over Greg's lower back and ass, delighting in the little mewling sounds coming from his lover.
As Nick slowly sank to his knees, he was determined to drain some of that accursed energy from Greg.
* * * * *
Later, at the lab, Nick couldn't help but notice that he had accomplished his goal. Greg walked through the lab that day in an almost dreamy state, even bouncing off a door frame once or twice. His condition wasn't helped by the fact that Nick would lick his lips seductively every time Greg looked his way; Warrick was right next to Greg once when this happened, and couldn't help but laugh uproariously. Sara saw Warrick doubled over and turned to look at Nick, whose tongue was still darting around his lips. She ribbed him and turned back to what they were working on.
"All right Nick, so what do we have?" Sara asked in an almost chiding tone. Nick glared at her, even though he knew he deserved it
"Yesterday, you talked to the medical examiner and the coroner and I talked to the girl. According to your report, the medical examiner only started the autopsy because the coroner had brought the victim in and she had been on a table for approximately two hours with no signs of life." Sara nodded. "What did the coroner say?"
"He said that when he arrived at the scene, the paramedics had already told him the vic was dead. He did a ten-second check of her pulse and confirmed that she was dead. Transported her to the morgue via the ambulance, also saw no signs of life during the ride. He had no idea she was still alive."
Nick leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers, thinking. He didn't know how the paramedics and the coroner could have taken the vic for dead. He hadn't gotten much of an answer out of the vic - she had stayed almost silent. He had asked her if she was alright, how she felt: she was fine, she replied, just fine. Nick couldn't understand how anyone in that position could be just fine, but he didn't push it. He asked her what happened, and she said that she couldn't remember, other than she passed out on the lawn during a party, just like the witnesses had said.
"Nick... what're you thinking?"
Nick shook his head to clear away the cloud of his thoughts. "Sorry. What I was thinking is that we don't know how the paramedics and consequently the coroner could have mistaken the vic for dead. It's... disturbing that this could have happened." Sara nodded her head in agreement. "The vic didn't really seem like she would open up too much more, at least not anytime soon. Could be trauma from almost having been cut open on the exam table."
"Could be something that happens to her often," Sara offered.
"What, almost being gutted?" Nick exclaimed. Sara laughed in a nervous way and shook her head.
"No. What I meant was it's possible that the passing out part of it could happen to her often. Or possibly finding herself in odd situations that would make most people freak."
"You would know something about that, wouldn't you Sara?" Greg asked, startling them both. Nick looked up to see Greg standing in the doorway with a large grin on his face. Sara turned around and smiled at him, earning a beam back. Nick loved it when he smiled like that: it made him look like a little kid with the way his ears stuck out. Very endearing. "I hear you guys got a case of a vampire." Sara raised an eyebrow at him, but Nick knew what Greg was thinking. Greg was a big fan of horror movies new and old, emphasis on old. "Person coming back from the dead? Classic vampire bit." He pulled out a chair next to Nick and settled in, and Nick knew they were in for a rant. "Vampires sleep in coffins set in plots of their native soil. When it's time to wake up, hey ho the dead come back to life. Did you know," he continued, stealing a sip of Nick's water, "that back in the eighteenth century there were many people accidentally buried alive, and when they clawed their way out and made it back to the village, the villagers would freak out and murder them. When there were outbreaks of tuberculosis, before it was discovered to be a disease, the person suffering would be accused of being a vampire due to the blood in the corners of their mouth. However, there were examples of people who actually did drink blood, two of which being Vlad the Impaler, whom most people know about due to the book Dracula; and Elizabeth Bathory, who - " He was cut off when Nick slipped a hand over his mouth.
Nick looked apologetically at Sara. "He watches the History Channel too much sometimes," he explained. Greg grinned around the fingers covering his mouth, and Sara told Nick to let him go. Greg then shot back "Yeah, and any time I give Nick the remote he turns on Animal Planet. If there's a special about birds I can't get him off the couch." Nick swatted him playfully, and after a round of chuckles, they fell silent. They all sat at the table, pondering their problem, for long enough that Grissom came in and peered at them as he was walking by.
"You all alright?" he asked as he peered over his glasses, his right eyebrow raised and his lips pursed slightly in that classic Grissom face. They all nodded, but Grissom wasn't buying it. He sat down with them and looked at Sara, who explained the situation to him. "Narcolepsy," Grissom answered simply as if it were the clearest answer in the world. Nick slowly turned to look at Grissom incredulously. "Some severe cases of narcolepsy cause the heart to slow down to an almost imperceptible rate. Slowed heart rate means slowed breathing." He shrugged and got up, planting a quick kiss on the top of Sara's head as he left the room.
"Narcolepsy?" Nick asked.
Sara shrugged and stood up. "I guess that means..." she paused and stretched, a symphony of crackles sounding from her back. "That we need to go interview the vic again."
Nick nodded and also stood up. He stretched, but there was no popping, which saddened him. Popping your back always felt so good. He held his hand out to Greg to help him to his feet. Nick whispered a few sweet nothings in Greg's ear, and he and Sara left.
Greg watched Sara and Nick leave with a tiny twinge of unhappiness in his gut: if Nick and Sara had to drive back out to Rachel, it was going to be another really late night for Nick, and Greg wasn't sure he could stay up this time. He was dead on his feet after the previous night and the shower this morning. Greg was starting to miss his boyfriend, which was a silly feeling to have since Nick still came home to him every night. Still, not a pleasant feeling.
* * * * * * * * *
The drive to Rachel was not a particularly long one, but Sara and Nick still managed to become bored after not too long. When you're used to spending at least eight hours a day figuring out puzzles, simply driving could be a complete bore. So, Nick decided they needed to play a game.
"So, I'm going on a road trip, and I'm gonna pack a meal. I pack a..." Sara just looked at Nick when he said this. "Aw come on, you gotta know this game! It's one of the classic road trip games that every kid played when they were little!" Nick exclaimed. Sara still just looked at him, a grin just barely curling the corner of her mouth. "Okay I'll start. I pack... an apple."
"I pack... a banana?" Sara asked.
"See, you got it!" Nick sounded ecstatic.
Needless to say, they were both more than a little relieved when they finally arrived in Rachel. They passed the Aleinn, and the cook waved from the back door, smoke issuing from between his lips. Nick and Sara drove to the fire station in the middle of town, coincidentally about a thousand feet from the edge of town. The vic had been offered a cot there until the case was closed.
They were greeted by the same fireman as before, but this time they were able to contain themselves and avert their eyes upward. He led them to the sleeping quarters and there the vic was, reading Bad Dirt, the new Annie Proulx novel. Nick himself had just picked it up a week ago from the bookstore, and lamentably not had enough time to read it since then. She looked up when they walked in and smiled a small, almost private smile.
"Miss..." Sara began, but then realized that she didn't know the vic's name. Through all the discussions she and Nick had had over the past day and a half about this case, Nick had never mentioned her name. Sara reprimanded herself for never thinking to ask.
"Salome," the girl said, standing up and extending her hand. "Morgan Salome."
"Sara Sidle, pleased to meet you." There was something about that handshake that Sara didn't like very much, but she couldn't really put her finger on it.
"Miss Salome," Nick said, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"Morgan, please."
"Morgan," he acknowledged with a nod of his head. "We're here to discuss your case a little bit more. Are you feeling up to it today? I know the polite thing would have been to call ahead instead of just showing up, but..." He trailed off. Morgan leaned in to whisper in his ear, igniting a small flame of frustration in Sara's head: she hated it when people opened up to Nick like that. It was a very childish thing for someone to do, and it frustrated her so because no one ever opened up to her in that way. When Morgan was done whispering, Nick turned to Sara and leaned in close, as if he were telling her something he didn't want Morgan to hear instead of simply repeating what he had just been told. "Morgan here says she would really like to conduct this interview in private." Sara glared none too subtly at the other woman when Nick said this. "She'd like to talk to me only."
Taking a deep breath to quell her vexation, Sara nodded. "Fine," she mumbled. "I'll be outside." She stalked to the door and slammed it behind her, planting herself in one of the folding chairs down the hall. The best she could hope for now was for the fireman with the nice tush to walk by... over and over again.
Nick gestured for Morgan to sit down, which she did with the grace of someone who used their legs a lot. Her stance at the edge of the bed reminded Nick of a catcher: her feet close to each other, her knees wide apart in a very unladylike position.
"So why don't you tell me what happened?"
She sighed. "I already told you. I passed out at a party, don't know how I ended up at the morgue. Next thing I remember I wake up to the medical examiner trying to do a y incision on me." She chewed a fingernail nervously. That was just the icing on the cake to Nick - one more way he knew there was more to the story.
"Morgan, I'm gonna need the whole story," he stated bluntly. She rolled her eyes and sighed again, shifting in her seat. This behavior reminded Nick so much of Kristy that it caused him to stop and think seriously about who he was actually talking to. He wasn't fully cured of it until Morgan started speaking again: her voice was much sweeter than Kristy's, much less seductive. "You want to know how they could have thought I was dead, when I very obviously was not."
"Narcolepsy," Nick offered. Morgan looked absolutely stunned that he knew this, and he decided to keep his source to himself. Better if she thought he was just absolutely brilliant like that.
"Yes, narcolepsy. I have a form of narcolepsy that really doesn't strike very often, but when it does it seems to everyone who hasn't seen it before as though I'm dead." She got off the bed and poured herself a glass of water. She offered a drink to Nick, who politely declined, and sat back down. "My first attack was when I was fifteen. I had just come home from the homecoming dance, and I went into my bedroom to change. When I didn't come back out to talk some more to my parents, they got suspicious and came into my room. To them, it seemed that I had keeled over dead on the floor. According to their beliefs, there was no autopsy performed, and I was buried almost immediately without being embalmed. Made it easier for the soul to escape the body, according to them. Lucky for me, I guess. My parents stayed for about an hour after the funeral, sitting by my grave and encouraging my soul to move on. That's right about when I woke up, discovered myself in a coffin, and started banging away as hard as I could, screaming my lungs out." Nick had a particularly nasty flashback when Morgan said this. All over again it was the bright green light at his feet, the fan that would turn off when the light came on, and the fire ants... "...The next time it happened was when I was twenty-one and lost my virginity after knocking back a couple of drinks. I was at a friend's house, and she called my parents, unsure of what to do. Thinking they couldn't possibly be blessed with my return from the dead twice in a row, my parents once again had me interred, but this time bought me a plot in a mausoleum and left the lid of my coffin a little loose."
Nick listened to this in wide-eyed horror - this girl had been buried alive twice, and was telling the story like it wasn't a big deal. He had gone through months and months of intense therapy after his burial, and it still gave him nightmares at least once a week. He knew it couldn't be easy on Greg to have to ease a screaming Nick back in to sleep, but that was a sign of love, right?
Morgan saw the look on Nick's face and continued anyway. "When I moved away from home three years ago, my parents made sure to tell my roommates my history. And, contrary to their beliefs, they changed their minds about requiring an autopsy. Two close calls was too many, in their minds."
"Well weren't they?" Nick interrupted roughly, still trying to figure out how she could be so cavalier about it. Morgan smiled a sideways smile, almost as if she pitied Nick.
"I now know what awaits my body after I die. It's no longer scary to me." She ran her fingers through her long, curly ginger hair. "I dunno. My friends have all suggested that I'm suffering from shock, but it doesn't feel like that to me. I just don't care anymore whether it happens again. I know I can get out of sticky situations."
Nick and Sara left a few minutes later, throwing up a shower of gravel as Sara sped out. She had remembered she was supposed to have a date with Grissom, and if they hurried, she would only be an hour late. Morgan waved almost remorsefully from the back porch of the fire station, Nick's card in hand. He wanted to make sure she could get a hold of him at any time.
* * * * * * * *
Greg woke up just a bit when Nick came home. He rolled over and looked at the clock: nine o'clock. Nick was absurdly late, but Greg knew he should have expected it. Sara and Nick had been an hour and a half away, pulling a double just to get this interview taken care of. He rolled back over and snuggled into the covers, knowing Nick would be in soon.
When Greg woke up four hours later to take a piss, he could see the chairside lamp in the living room still on. He peeked around the corner, and Nick wasn't reading, or watching Animal Planet, or playing video games like Greg was expecting. Instead, he was just sitting there, staring off into space. Thinking hard, and Greg wished he knew what about.
CHAPTER TWO: The solution
After having spent a delightful evening in each other's arms the night before, both Nick and Greg were loath to get up. Nick could sense this could potentially become a problem, but who in their right mind would really want to get up to go to a work where all they see every day is people at the worst time of their lives, when the evening had been spent entwined with a hard, warm body. Nick's pager went off right as Greg's alarm sounded, not simply waking them but shocking them into wakefulness. Groaning, Nick looked at his pager while Greg slapped blindly at his alarm, attempting to shut it off.
Sara. Of course it had to be Sara paging him even before he's due to work. He knew it couldn't be too pertinent since the page wasn't from Grissom, but he knew he should get up and get going anyway.
Greg was the first one up, always was. The phrase "bright-eyed and bushy-tailed" didn't quite cover Greg's level of energy right after waking. Everyone at the lab always thought he was so energetic because of the coffee he drank, but the Blue Hawaiian was just the icing on top. In reality, giving Greg coffee was like giving a kid espresso and a puppy - not good. He whipped the sheets off the bed, hoping to get Nick up, but Nick just muttered something darkly and yanked the sheets back. Greg didn't put up a fight: Nick was by far stronger than he was, especially when it came to covers. Shrugging, Greg turned and went into the bathroom to start a shower. He grabbed one of the big fluffy bath sheets from the rack and set it on the floor near the shower. This drove Nick nuts, but Greg's thinking was that that way he wouldn't have to walk his dripping, freezing ass over to the towel rack; much more convenient this way.
He turned the water on, making it almost too hot to stand, and stepped in. He grabbed the soap and slowly slathered it on, savoring the comforting feeling of the warm water and of cleanliness. He was just starting on his face when he thought he heard Nick's feet pad from the bed into the bathroom. He knew he heard Nick stumble over the bath sheet and curse quietly, but he pretended not to hear, continuing with his scrubbing. Then there was a warm body pressed against his back and soft lips laying kisses along his jawline.
He turned into Nick's inviting arms and sighed. This always felt so right, these big strong arms wrapped around him tightly, pressing him into that wonderfully sculpted chest. Nick was planting soft, almost butterfly kisses all over his cheeks and neck, making Greg's knees weak. Nick slowly backed him up till his butt hit the tile, making Greg shiver with the sudden temperature change.
"Good morning," Nick rumbled, grinding his crotch into Greg's with just enough pressure to get Greg excited. Greg gasped quietly, trying his hardest not to give it away just how aroused he was getting, even though his efforts were fruitless given the conditions... down under. He tried to fight it, pushing weakly at Nick's waist to get him to pull away, but Nick had more on his mind - he wouldn't give up that easily.
Nick slipped his hand between their bodies, fingertips trailing lightly across the tip of Greg's cock, making Greg shiver. Nick's thumb traced through the bead of precum that was there, rubbing it around the head before bringing his thumb to his mouth and sucking it clean. He trailed his fingers over Greg's lower back and ass, delighting in the little mewling sounds coming from his lover.
As Nick slowly sank to his knees, he was determined to drain some of that accursed energy from Greg.
* * * * *
Later, at the lab, Nick couldn't help but notice that he had accomplished his goal. Greg walked through the lab that day in an almost dreamy state, even bouncing off a door frame once or twice. His condition wasn't helped by the fact that Nick would lick his lips seductively every time Greg looked his way; Warrick was right next to Greg once when this happened, and couldn't help but laugh uproariously. Sara saw Warrick doubled over and turned to look at Nick, whose tongue was still darting around his lips. She ribbed him and turned back to what they were working on.
"All right Nick, so what do we have?" Sara asked in an almost chiding tone. Nick glared at her, even though he knew he deserved it
"Yesterday, you talked to the medical examiner and the coroner and I talked to the girl. According to your report, the medical examiner only started the autopsy because the coroner had brought the victim in and she had been on a table for approximately two hours with no signs of life." Sara nodded. "What did the coroner say?"
"He said that when he arrived at the scene, the paramedics had already told him the vic was dead. He did a ten-second check of her pulse and confirmed that she was dead. Transported her to the morgue via the ambulance, also saw no signs of life during the ride. He had no idea she was still alive."
Nick leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers, thinking. He didn't know how the paramedics and the coroner could have taken the vic for dead. He hadn't gotten much of an answer out of the vic - she had stayed almost silent. He had asked her if she was alright, how she felt: she was fine, she replied, just fine. Nick couldn't understand how anyone in that position could be just fine, but he didn't push it. He asked her what happened, and she said that she couldn't remember, other than she passed out on the lawn during a party, just like the witnesses had said.
"Nick... what're you thinking?"
Nick shook his head to clear away the cloud of his thoughts. "Sorry. What I was thinking is that we don't know how the paramedics and consequently the coroner could have mistaken the vic for dead. It's... disturbing that this could have happened." Sara nodded her head in agreement. "The vic didn't really seem like she would open up too much more, at least not anytime soon. Could be trauma from almost having been cut open on the exam table."
"Could be something that happens to her often," Sara offered.
"What, almost being gutted?" Nick exclaimed. Sara laughed in a nervous way and shook her head.
"No. What I meant was it's possible that the passing out part of it could happen to her often. Or possibly finding herself in odd situations that would make most people freak."
"You would know something about that, wouldn't you Sara?" Greg asked, startling them both. Nick looked up to see Greg standing in the doorway with a large grin on his face. Sara turned around and smiled at him, earning a beam back. Nick loved it when he smiled like that: it made him look like a little kid with the way his ears stuck out. Very endearing. "I hear you guys got a case of a vampire." Sara raised an eyebrow at him, but Nick knew what Greg was thinking. Greg was a big fan of horror movies new and old, emphasis on old. "Person coming back from the dead? Classic vampire bit." He pulled out a chair next to Nick and settled in, and Nick knew they were in for a rant. "Vampires sleep in coffins set in plots of their native soil. When it's time to wake up, hey ho the dead come back to life. Did you know," he continued, stealing a sip of Nick's water, "that back in the eighteenth century there were many people accidentally buried alive, and when they clawed their way out and made it back to the village, the villagers would freak out and murder them. When there were outbreaks of tuberculosis, before it was discovered to be a disease, the person suffering would be accused of being a vampire due to the blood in the corners of their mouth. However, there were examples of people who actually did drink blood, two of which being Vlad the Impaler, whom most people know about due to the book Dracula; and Elizabeth Bathory, who - " He was cut off when Nick slipped a hand over his mouth.
Nick looked apologetically at Sara. "He watches the History Channel too much sometimes," he explained. Greg grinned around the fingers covering his mouth, and Sara told Nick to let him go. Greg then shot back "Yeah, and any time I give Nick the remote he turns on Animal Planet. If there's a special about birds I can't get him off the couch." Nick swatted him playfully, and after a round of chuckles, they fell silent. They all sat at the table, pondering their problem, for long enough that Grissom came in and peered at them as he was walking by.
"You all alright?" he asked as he peered over his glasses, his right eyebrow raised and his lips pursed slightly in that classic Grissom face. They all nodded, but Grissom wasn't buying it. He sat down with them and looked at Sara, who explained the situation to him. "Narcolepsy," Grissom answered simply as if it were the clearest answer in the world. Nick slowly turned to look at Grissom incredulously. "Some severe cases of narcolepsy cause the heart to slow down to an almost imperceptible rate. Slowed heart rate means slowed breathing." He shrugged and got up, planting a quick kiss on the top of Sara's head as he left the room.
"Narcolepsy?" Nick asked.
Sara shrugged and stood up. "I guess that means..." she paused and stretched, a symphony of crackles sounding from her back. "That we need to go interview the vic again."
Nick nodded and also stood up. He stretched, but there was no popping, which saddened him. Popping your back always felt so good. He held his hand out to Greg to help him to his feet. Nick whispered a few sweet nothings in Greg's ear, and he and Sara left.
Greg watched Sara and Nick leave with a tiny twinge of unhappiness in his gut: if Nick and Sara had to drive back out to Rachel, it was going to be another really late night for Nick, and Greg wasn't sure he could stay up this time. He was dead on his feet after the previous night and the shower this morning. Greg was starting to miss his boyfriend, which was a silly feeling to have since Nick still came home to him every night. Still, not a pleasant feeling.
* * * * * * * * *
The drive to Rachel was not a particularly long one, but Sara and Nick still managed to become bored after not too long. When you're used to spending at least eight hours a day figuring out puzzles, simply driving could be a complete bore. So, Nick decided they needed to play a game.
"So, I'm going on a road trip, and I'm gonna pack a meal. I pack a..." Sara just looked at Nick when he said this. "Aw come on, you gotta know this game! It's one of the classic road trip games that every kid played when they were little!" Nick exclaimed. Sara still just looked at him, a grin just barely curling the corner of her mouth. "Okay I'll start. I pack... an apple."
"I pack... a banana?" Sara asked.
"See, you got it!" Nick sounded ecstatic.
Needless to say, they were both more than a little relieved when they finally arrived in Rachel. They passed the Aleinn, and the cook waved from the back door, smoke issuing from between his lips. Nick and Sara drove to the fire station in the middle of town, coincidentally about a thousand feet from the edge of town. The vic had been offered a cot there until the case was closed.
They were greeted by the same fireman as before, but this time they were able to contain themselves and avert their eyes upward. He led them to the sleeping quarters and there the vic was, reading Bad Dirt, the new Annie Proulx novel. Nick himself had just picked it up a week ago from the bookstore, and lamentably not had enough time to read it since then. She looked up when they walked in and smiled a small, almost private smile.
"Miss..." Sara began, but then realized that she didn't know the vic's name. Through all the discussions she and Nick had had over the past day and a half about this case, Nick had never mentioned her name. Sara reprimanded herself for never thinking to ask.
"Salome," the girl said, standing up and extending her hand. "Morgan Salome."
"Sara Sidle, pleased to meet you." There was something about that handshake that Sara didn't like very much, but she couldn't really put her finger on it.
"Miss Salome," Nick said, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"Morgan, please."
"Morgan," he acknowledged with a nod of his head. "We're here to discuss your case a little bit more. Are you feeling up to it today? I know the polite thing would have been to call ahead instead of just showing up, but..." He trailed off. Morgan leaned in to whisper in his ear, igniting a small flame of frustration in Sara's head: she hated it when people opened up to Nick like that. It was a very childish thing for someone to do, and it frustrated her so because no one ever opened up to her in that way. When Morgan was done whispering, Nick turned to Sara and leaned in close, as if he were telling her something he didn't want Morgan to hear instead of simply repeating what he had just been told. "Morgan here says she would really like to conduct this interview in private." Sara glared none too subtly at the other woman when Nick said this. "She'd like to talk to me only."
Taking a deep breath to quell her vexation, Sara nodded. "Fine," she mumbled. "I'll be outside." She stalked to the door and slammed it behind her, planting herself in one of the folding chairs down the hall. The best she could hope for now was for the fireman with the nice tush to walk by... over and over again.
Nick gestured for Morgan to sit down, which she did with the grace of someone who used their legs a lot. Her stance at the edge of the bed reminded Nick of a catcher: her feet close to each other, her knees wide apart in a very unladylike position.
"So why don't you tell me what happened?"
She sighed. "I already told you. I passed out at a party, don't know how I ended up at the morgue. Next thing I remember I wake up to the medical examiner trying to do a y incision on me." She chewed a fingernail nervously. That was just the icing on the cake to Nick - one more way he knew there was more to the story.
"Morgan, I'm gonna need the whole story," he stated bluntly. She rolled her eyes and sighed again, shifting in her seat. This behavior reminded Nick so much of Kristy that it caused him to stop and think seriously about who he was actually talking to. He wasn't fully cured of it until Morgan started speaking again: her voice was much sweeter than Kristy's, much less seductive. "You want to know how they could have thought I was dead, when I very obviously was not."
"Narcolepsy," Nick offered. Morgan looked absolutely stunned that he knew this, and he decided to keep his source to himself. Better if she thought he was just absolutely brilliant like that.
"Yes, narcolepsy. I have a form of narcolepsy that really doesn't strike very often, but when it does it seems to everyone who hasn't seen it before as though I'm dead." She got off the bed and poured herself a glass of water. She offered a drink to Nick, who politely declined, and sat back down. "My first attack was when I was fifteen. I had just come home from the homecoming dance, and I went into my bedroom to change. When I didn't come back out to talk some more to my parents, they got suspicious and came into my room. To them, it seemed that I had keeled over dead on the floor. According to their beliefs, there was no autopsy performed, and I was buried almost immediately without being embalmed. Made it easier for the soul to escape the body, according to them. Lucky for me, I guess. My parents stayed for about an hour after the funeral, sitting by my grave and encouraging my soul to move on. That's right about when I woke up, discovered myself in a coffin, and started banging away as hard as I could, screaming my lungs out." Nick had a particularly nasty flashback when Morgan said this. All over again it was the bright green light at his feet, the fan that would turn off when the light came on, and the fire ants... "...The next time it happened was when I was twenty-one and lost my virginity after knocking back a couple of drinks. I was at a friend's house, and she called my parents, unsure of what to do. Thinking they couldn't possibly be blessed with my return from the dead twice in a row, my parents once again had me interred, but this time bought me a plot in a mausoleum and left the lid of my coffin a little loose."
Nick listened to this in wide-eyed horror - this girl had been buried alive twice, and was telling the story like it wasn't a big deal. He had gone through months and months of intense therapy after his burial, and it still gave him nightmares at least once a week. He knew it couldn't be easy on Greg to have to ease a screaming Nick back in to sleep, but that was a sign of love, right?
Morgan saw the look on Nick's face and continued anyway. "When I moved away from home three years ago, my parents made sure to tell my roommates my history. And, contrary to their beliefs, they changed their minds about requiring an autopsy. Two close calls was too many, in their minds."
"Well weren't they?" Nick interrupted roughly, still trying to figure out how she could be so cavalier about it. Morgan smiled a sideways smile, almost as if she pitied Nick.
"I now know what awaits my body after I die. It's no longer scary to me." She ran her fingers through her long, curly ginger hair. "I dunno. My friends have all suggested that I'm suffering from shock, but it doesn't feel like that to me. I just don't care anymore whether it happens again. I know I can get out of sticky situations."
Nick and Sara left a few minutes later, throwing up a shower of gravel as Sara sped out. She had remembered she was supposed to have a date with Grissom, and if they hurried, she would only be an hour late. Morgan waved almost remorsefully from the back porch of the fire station, Nick's card in hand. He wanted to make sure she could get a hold of him at any time.
* * * * * * * *
Greg woke up just a bit when Nick came home. He rolled over and looked at the clock: nine o'clock. Nick was absurdly late, but Greg knew he should have expected it. Sara and Nick had been an hour and a half away, pulling a double just to get this interview taken care of. He rolled back over and snuggled into the covers, knowing Nick would be in soon.
When Greg woke up four hours later to take a piss, he could see the chairside lamp in the living room still on. He peeked around the corner, and Nick wasn't reading, or watching Animal Planet, or playing video games like Greg was expecting. Instead, he was just sitting there, staring off into space. Thinking hard, and Greg wished he knew what about.