Title: Human, On my Faithless Arm
By: Joanne Soper-Cook
Fandom: CSI
Pairing: Gil Grissom/Jim Brass
Rating: NC-17 (eventually)
Genre: Drama
Spoilers: Some reference to the episode "Ellie"
Summary: When Jim is injured in the line of duty, Gil steps in to help.

Lay your sleeping head, my love

Human, on my faithless arm.

(W. H. Auden, "Lullaby")

It happens so fast.

A stupid and trite observation, but the kind of thing people invariably think about in situations like this. "Here's the thing," Vega will say it later, when they're all back at the precinct, when they're joking about it in the break room. "Here's the thing: the perp is coming out of his car, he's got the door in front of him, but the window is rolled down, so he's firing through the window." That's what he'll say when they're all safe at home again and everything is okay. No harm, no foul.

Grissom can't see Jim's face, but Vega can. Vega can see everything, just like slow motion: Jim slipping out of his protective crouch into a standing position, moving towards the perp with his hands out, his gun still in its holster. Jim hasn't drawn his weapon. It doesn't make any sense until he sees how Jim's features relax into something that looks an awful lot like relief.

Vega's got his elbow in the perp's back; the bastard isn't even squirming. Grissom's running - who knew the lab rat had it in him? - and Vega hands the perp off to a uniform, easy, like wiping dirt off your hands. "Call an ambulance - do it!" He touches Grissom's shoulder, sees how Grissom is pressing hard against the wound, but it's not enough. The Captain has been gut shot; simple pressure isn't enough. The blood is still welling up between Grissom's fingers, relentless, there's too much of it. Grissom is crying, his face working, shoulders heaving silently. Why is Grissom crying? Why would Grissom even care? Vega bends low to speak to Brass: "Captain, listen to me: you hold on, okay? We called the ambulance. The ambulance is coming, okay? You just hold on."

"Why's it so cold?" Jim asks. "How'd it get so cold?" It feels like someone is pouring ice water down his back; his hands and feet are numb. Grissom has wrapped his coat around Jim; he's holding Jim on his lap. "He shot me, didn't he?" He needs to ask the question. He can feel the cold, but it's better than this Vegas heat, and maybe he can finally rest for awhile, get some sleep. His house hasn't got an air conditioner; he can't get any sleep and when he does sleep, his dreams are bad dreams, with dangerous things in them. He doesn't mind the cold: he's back home again, he's a kid again, twelve or thirteen, with new hockey skates for Christmas and the rink his dad made for him, out behind the house. Every November as soon as it got cold enough, his dad would uncoil the hose and flood the backyard, patiently laying down a perfect sheet of ice. New skates for Christmas, so they went down around the corner to the bike shop and watched as Murph ground the blades, putting steel against the wheel over and over till the skates were sharp as knives. Early in the morning, the day after Christmas, everybody still in bed, even the old man still asleep and Jim out in the backyard alone, skating in the chilly morning air, while smoke from neighborhood chimneys drifted upwards in silent plumes. Around and around, very nearly weightless, feeling gravity in the pull of his thigh muscles, in the bite of his blades against the ice.

Grissom's lower lip is trembling; Grissom never cries. "Don't try to talk." Grissom doesn't have any tear ducts. Grissom has no feelings. Grissom's face is wet.

"Hey, Gil?" He has to talk; it's important. "Tell Ellie, okay?"

"You want me to tell Ellie you've been shot?"

"Tell her I love her."

It isn't hard; it's like falling asleep.

Sara is crying and being comforted by Catherine. Greg is sitting next to Nick, holding onto a paper cup of coffee and staring hollow-eyed at nothing. Warrick is pacing: back and forth, back and forth.

"I don't get it," Greg says quietly. He feels he should say something.

"He got shot, okay? Yeah, another good cop got shot." Warrick stops long enough to snap at them. It's his way of dealing, just like Sara's crying and Catherine's tight-lipped fury and Grissom's silence.

Grissom is standing by the wall, alone. He still has Jim's blood on him, and he hasn't said a word since Jim was taken to surgery an hour ago. No one is telling them anything, but nurses have been shuttling in and out of the O.R. with blood and plasma, and steel pans full of fresh instruments. Catherine leaves Sara with a fistful of Kleenex and a cup of coffee.

"How you holding up?"

"He's going to die in there." Grissom's voice is flat, uninflected. To the others, it sounds like stubbornness, like holding himself in check, but Catherine has known him long enough to recognize the signs of acute emotional distress.

"Let's take a little walk, huh?" She touches him; she is one of the few who ever do. "Get that blood cleaned off."

Grissom nods and follows her down the corridor.

"I spoke to Vega. He's got the perp in Interrogation. He said Jim deliberately took the bullet." Catherine tries to be matter-of-fact, but she doesn't have it in her; she cares too much.

"Yeah, he did." Grissom waits while Catherine soaks some Kleenex in a drinking fountain and sponges the blood off his hands. " I saw it."

"He did?" She tosses the Kleenex in the trash. "He deliberately walked out and took a bullet?"

Grissom's shoulders lift and drop. "He did." His careful facade breaks - suddenly, violently. "Catherine, how the hell could we not know? After all that stuff with Ellie -" He presses his palms against his eyes. "How come neither of us noticed he was drowning?"

They go back and sit with the others in the corridor. Greg and Nick eventually fall asleep, leaning on each other, while Warrick practices propping up the wall. Sara sits and chews the inside of her cheek, but Grissom doesn't notice. He doesn't notice anything as he sits there staring at nothing at all while he sees Jim falling to the ground over and over again.

"Mr. Grissom?" The surgeon is unmasked and ungloved now; Grissom's heart surges into his throat, each beat a painful throbbing. "We had to remove his spleen, but the detective was lucky. The bullet didn't hit anything we couldn't remove or repair."

"I'd like to see him," Grissom says. His knees are weak, the muscles of his thighs quivering, threatening to spill him to the ground.

"He'll be asleep for awhile," the surgeon says, "and he's in Recovery right now. It's going to be about an hour before we move him upstairs to a room."

"I'll wait." He has to satisfy himself that Brass is out of danger. He has to see the evidence with his own eyes. "Catherine, the rest of you should go home, try to get some sleep. I'll stick around for a bit. I think one of us should be here when he wakes up."

"What about his ex-wife?" she asks. "Shouldn't we contact her?"

"I think he keeps a phone number for her in his office. Try the Rolodex on his desk." Jim will want other things, things from home, but Grissom can't think of what they are, at least not now. It will have to wait. "And tell..." It sticks in his throat. "We need to tell Ellie."

"Mm." Catherine is as impressed with Ellie as Grissom is. "I'll get right on it."

"Thanks, Cath." He squeezes her hand. She gathers up the others and herds them out into the morning, ignoring all their protests, offering to buy them breakfast, cajoling them with promises to come back later. She makes a mental note to get a plant or something, maybe a big bouquet of flowers, and some books, some small token for Jim, so he knows that they all care about him.

Grissom finds an unoccupied couch and lies down, pillowing his head on his arm. The couch is too short for him, and made of lumpy vinyl. He rolls onto his back and lays his forearm over his eyes, willing away the images that replay themselves behind his lids. He drifts for awhile between waking and sleep, his body fighting to keep him on the narrow couch. He is dozing when a nurse taps his shoulder: "Mr. Grissom."

"How is he? Can I see him? I'd like to see him please. Thank you." The lateness of the hour forces him to be polite. He thinks he will kick this woman if she doesn't let him see Jim soon.

"Mr. Grissom, I'm afraid I can't let you see Captain Brass. He's been through significant trauma and we have to restrict visitors. Now, unless you're next of kin, I don't see what I can do for you."

The bottom drops out of his soul; he knows that he will go down on his knees to this woman, that he will beg unashamedly, that he will lie and steal. "Please." He passes a hand across his forehead, ridiculously close to tears. "You don't understand. He...we've been..."

Her eyebrows rise to a precipitous level. "Are you his...domestic partner?"

"I, uh...well..."

He can suddenly hear Catherine's voice inside his head: LIE.

"Yes." He coughs, hoping Jim will forgive him. "Yes, I am, and I think...well, I think I should be permitted to see...him." He thinks he will threaten her with the ACLU if she doesn't let him in. Could he do that? Hell, yeah, as Nicky would say.

"Well. Come on, let's see if we can't get you in there without anyone seeing."

Jim is still unconscious, but he looks reassuringly normal; there are I.V. lines and bags on poles, and various humming and beeping monitors, but he is still Jim. "Stay as long as you like," she says. "He'll want to see a familiar face when he wakes up." She brings him a blanket. "You need your rest, too. You can't look after him if you're worn out."

Grissom sits beside the bed, simply watching the reassuring rise and fall of Jim's chest. Emboldened by the silence, he reaches for the detective's hand, smoothing the backs of the long fingers and the palm. It's a reassuring, meditative gesture, or perhaps he's just very tired. It's been a hell of a night.

"Hey."

The voice startles him; he's gotten lost in his own thoughts, in the relative silence of the hospital room. He says the first thing that comes to mind: "What happened out there?"

Jim studiously avoids looking at him. "I got shot."

"You didn't pull your weapon. I saw you. Vega saw you."

"Yeah, well...we're saving up to get Vega some laser eye surgery."

They are both silent for several long moments, listening to the monitors and their electronic hum.

"The doctors had to take your spleen." Grissom can't tear his eyes away from the hospital gown, the tiny dots that make up the pattern. He can see Jim's hand, just at the edges of his vision, and the I.V. line running into the vein. He wants to lay his head down on the bed and just be quiet for a while --like when he was a kid, when the teacher would give them a quiet time every afternoon, ask them to put their heads down on the desk and close their eyes. What had been the purpose of that? Perhaps the teacher needed the rest, not them.

"Spleen, huh? You don't get a spare one of those, do you?"

"It's not funny!" Grissom is terrified, because he knows he's going to cry. It's all too horrible, sitting here and listening to Jim talk like this. It's horrible because he should have seen it coming, seen it and done something about it.

"I'm tired." Jim says as he begins drifting: he's back home in Jersey and it's Christmas time, Ellie is very young, and he's still married. He's been working late, investigating a string of murders at the same drive-through restaurant. He lets himself in the back door; his wife is crying. He knows she's pregnant again, even though she doesn't want any more kids, even though she hasn't told him. He's a detective: he's counted three months, three months without soiled sanitary napkins in the bathroom trash, three months of hearing her vomiting in the mornings. He sits down at the kitchen table and watches her twist the wedding ring around and around on her finger. 'I can't do this.' Maybe he's the one who says it; he's never really sure.

'What do you want to do?' He reaches for her hand, but she doesn't let him. He pretends he isn't hurt. He appreciates that she puts up with him, with his outrageous working hours, with the demands the precinct makes on him. He's dedicated and he's a good man and he knows she doesn't love him. She's been sleeping with his partner since before they were married. Ellie isn't his and this baby isn't his, and they haven't had sex in nearly six months. He wonders if they ever will again. He's a physical man; he needs to be touched, but she won't touch him and this is just one more thing for them to fight about. She terminates the pregnancy. A week later he comes home from work and she has changed the locks. His things are in a suitcase on the porch.

"She doesn't love me." Jim is whispering, his voice barely audible, but Grissom hears him.

"She doesn't deserve you," Grissom says - but Jim is fast asleep, insensible to comfort.