Title: How To
Save a Life
Author: Tyria
Rating: K
Disclaimer: Let me check… Nope, still not
mine.
AN: As always a huge thank you to my
beta LosingInTranslation. The song is “How to Save a Life” by The Fray.
I haven’t
thought about this in years, but I heard this song and was forced to
remember. This is dedicated to Corey, I
don’t know why you decided you had to leave but you are missed, and Ryan, to
have to live with this makes you so much stronger than I.
How To Save A Life
Grissom
walks through the door with the assignment slips in his hand and addresses his
crew waiting for him in the breakroom. “Sara and Catherine, you have a 426. The victim is being treated at the hospital,
and the SAE kit is waiting for processing.”
They both
stand with somber looks on their faces.
Catherine takes the slip out of Grissom’s extended hand while Sara walks
beside her and out the door.
“Warrick, you’re with me.
Possible days old body dump with extensive insect
activity.”
“More collection practice?” Grissom nods his
head and Warrick sighs. “Let the bugs die just one time, and you
never live it down.”
“Especially
with an entomologist as a boss,” Greg pipes up.
“You’re
just lucky we were able to catch the perpetrator without the timeline. I’ll meet you at the car. I’m driving so you can concentrate on the
insects on the way back.” Grissom turns
to the remaining two CSI’s. “Nick, Greg, probable suicide. Just need you to collect the evidence for
confirmation.”
“You got
it, boss,” Nick says as he plucks the slip out of Grissom’s grasp.
“I’ll
drive, Nick.”
Nick
gives a snort. “No way,
Greggo.
I’ve been through your drivin’ and there’s no
way I’m going through that again.”
“Fine. But I get control of the radio,” Greg taunts
as he walks out the door.
Grissom
smirks at the look of dread that falls over Nick’s face. “Melior
vos quam mihi.”
Nick
calls after him as he leaves the room.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Grissom
turns back towards him as he walks through the doorway. “Better you than me,” he says, then winks and
walks away.
*********************************************************************
Nick was
relieved to find that Greg was keeping the music at a relatively normal
level. He only had to speak up about
Greg’s handling of the radio one time. As
they made their way to the scene a song began to play that was actually very
enjoyable.
Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down it's just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
You begin to wonder why you came
Where did I go
wrong, I lost a friend
Suddenly,
Greg’s arm shot out across the truck and the station was hastily changed.
“Hey! I was enjoying that song! Put it back!”
Getting
no reaction, Nick glanced over at Greg to see him leaning stiffly back into his
seat with his head turned sharply to the window and his arms crossed in front
of his body, almost as though he was trying to give himself a hug.
“Greg?”
He heard
a sniff, and then Greg turned towards him, as he made his body posture more
relaxed. “Geesh,
are we there yet? I swear you drive like
my grandma.” He gave Nick a forced grin.
“You, my
friend, need to learn patience.” He was
about to ask Greg what was wrong when Greg turned up the volume of the radio,
which pretty much ended all talk for the rest of the ride over.
*********************************************************************
Detective
O’Riley walks over to them as the CSI’s
enter the house just off the WLVU campus.
“Body’s upstairs. A Marcus Wissman. Found by his roommate, Ken Pardon. Looks like a single gunshot wound to the
head. The gun was found near the body.”
“Ok, I’ll
take the roommate. You start collecting
upstairs.”
He starts
moving towards the roommate when a quiet “Nick?” stops him in his tracks. He
turns to Greg, worry showing in his face.
“Yeah, Greg?”
It’s
glaringly obvious that Greg isn’t really paying attention to Nick,
instead he focuses solely on the roommate, so Nick clears his throat. “How about I talk to Ken? I know what it feels…I’ve had some experience
with this before.”
Nick
frowns. Ever since the car ride over, Greg’s
behavior has been completely out of character, and it is really worrying
him. “Are you sure?”
Greg
catches the look on Nick’s face and flashes another phony grin at him. “I’m always sure.” Without another word, he walks over to the
roommate to get the story of what happened.
Nick
keeps his eyes on Greg as he addresses O’Riley. “Keep an eye on him for me, will ya? I don’t want him
to think I’m babying him, but...” The
bristle-haired detective nods and Nick heads upstairs to start on the body.
O’Riley
walks up just as Greg begins his questioning.
He finds both young men sitting at the kitchen table. “What time did you get home?”
“Ten ten.”
“You’re
sure about that?”
“Oh, yeah... We were supposed to go to the movies
tonight. We were gonna
leave at ten, but I got caught up in my research again.” Ken stops to take a huge breath before
continuing. “When I finally looked at a
clock, I realized I was going to be late getting home, so I hurried back as
fast as I could. As soon as I entered
the door, I looked at my watch and was relieved I was only ten minutes late.”
“Were you
late a lot?” Greg interjects.
He gives
a snort of laughter and smiles. “Yeah.” His face falls
suddenly, “That was always a running joke between us.” He puts his elbows on the table and holds his
head in his hands, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands.
Suddenly,
Ken slaps his hand down on the table and gets up to pace agitatedly. “I thought I had talked him out of it. I thought he was fine...that he was ok.”
Greg
frowns at his comments, “What do you mean?”
Ken
heaves a sigh and stops moving, keeping his back to Greg. “A couple weeks ago, I was studying for a
midterm happening the next day, when I got a call from Marcus. He started talking about how futile
everything is and how the world needs fewer people. I realized that he was way to close to the
edge, so I kept talking to him while I ran back to the house. When I got there, I sat him down and tried to
pull him back from that edge. We ended
up talking all night and I missed my midterm.”
Let him know that
you know best
Cause after all you do know best
Try to slip past his defense
Without granting innocence
Lay down a list of what is wrong
The things you've told him all along
And pray to God he hears you
And pray to God he hears you
“Is this
when the disturbance was reported?” O’Riley asks.
“Yeah. We got a little loud, and there were times we
were yelling at each other, but I was not giving up until he heard me. Like actually understood what I meant, not
just heard what I was saying.”
As he begins to
raise his voice
You lower yours and grant him one last choice
Drive until you lose the road
Or break with the ones you've followed
He will do one of two things
He will admit to everything
Or he'll say he's just not the same
And you'll begin to wonder why you came
Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
Ken walks
back over to the chair and flops down onto it.
“I don’t know what happened. I
thought everything was fine. I really
thought everything was fine.” He says as
he shakes his head and looks down at the table
Greg
speaks up. “Hey, you were able to talk
to him once and calm him down. That
takes a strong and dedicated friend, believe me I know. You can’t blame yourself for a decision he
made, although I know you’re going to.”
Greg pauses and looks the man over.
“Do you have another friend, or a girlfriend?”
Ken nods
in response.
“Have you
called that person yet?”
Ken
shakes his head slowly back and forth.
“Call them. You’re gonna need them
right now, and they’re gonna want to be here for
you.” Greg waits until Ken pulls out his
cellphone and dials before standing up. “Thanks for all your help.”
He rushes
out of the kitchen and through the back door.
He hears the muffled voice of O’Riley yelling
something, but ignores it. The backyard
fades away as his memories begin swirling around him. Faster and faster they spin making him dizzy.
Nick’s
hand on his shoulder pulls him violently back to the present. “Greg?”
Greg’s
head whips over to look at Nick.
“Nick.” He blinks a couple of
times to get himself back under control, then looks back at the house. “The scene...We’ve still gotta
process the house.”
Nick
tightens his grip on Greg’s shoulder keeping him in place. “You wanna talk
about what’s bugging you first…before we head back in there?”
“No,
I’m…No.” He looks Nick in the eye. “Let’s just get this done.” Nick lets Greg lead the way back inside.
**********************************************************************
They
begin driving back to the lab in silence.
After a couple of miles, Greg speaks up while looking out the side
window.
“It was
my Sophomore year in high school. A friend of mine called me during the middle
of the week. We talked for a couple of
hours. I could hear something in his
voice…almost pleading…or desperation…before he asked me to come over to his
place and continue talking. It was a
school night, so my mom refused to allow me to go over to his house. She also reminded me that I had another 15
minutes before I had to hang up ‘cause I had to go to sleep or I’d never make
it to school the next day. We ended the
call, and I went to bed not knowing what was gonna come
next.”
Nick
looks over at Greg and can see his chest heaving under the strain of his story and
his fists clenching and unclenching. He slowly
pulls the Tahoe over to the curb and gives Greg his undivided attention.
“I woke
up to the phone ringing continuously. I
glanced over at my alarm, saw that it was 4am, and wondered
who on earth would call at that time of night. I walked out of my room in time
to hear my mom answer the phone. I heard
her talking a little to the person on the other end. When I came into view, she put the
conversation on hold with her hand over the mouthpiece. She said the voice sounded like my friend’s
mother, but she couldn’t understand a single word. I asked for the phone and she handed it over,
the dread settling hard in my gut. I
answered the phone, letting the person on the other end know it’s me. All I heard was crying, and then the sound grew
faint. Next thing I knew, I’m being
handed off to my friend’s dad, and he was the one who told me what happened.”
Knowing
what is coming, Nick tries to stop him.
“Greg--”
“He was
dead. For some reason, he decided life
wasn’t worth living anymore and he killed himself. And he called me.” Greg sniffs hard and pounds his head once
against the glass. “He reached out to
me, and I wasn’t there for him.”
Where did I go
wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
“Greg.”
He turns
to Nick, for the first time acknowledging the other man. Nick can see the tears trying to escape his
friend’s eyes. Greg sniffs again and
wipes a hand over his face. “Don’t
worry, Nick. I know it’s not my
fault. Me and my mother…my poor mother
blamed herself so much for forcing me to get off that phone. We ended up going into therapy together.” He takes a huge breath to calm himself. “But sometimes things just become too hard
and the blame comes back at me full force.
I don’t think I’ll ever lose the guilt completely, but I’ve learned to
live with it.”
Where did I go
wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
He looks
at Nick again and grimaces. “I’m sorry.”
Nick
holds his gaze. “Don’t be. We all have things from our past that have hurt
or changed us.” Nick pauses for a
moment, thinking back to his own horrible childhood experience, before
remembering a piece of wisdom he has learned over the years. “I bet it feels pretty good to let that out.”
Greg gives
a half-smile. “Yeah, a
bit. I like to keep his memory
alive. He really was a good friend; kind,
funny, and always there for me. Reminds
me of another person I know…”
“Your
friend…what was his name,” Nick asks softly.
Greg
looks into his eyes and answers his question just as softly. “Nick.”