Title: Inside the Room
By: nigaishin
Pairing: HodgesxNick
Rating: PG
Beta: blackangel_life, uber thanks, really.
Disclaimers: Post Grave Danger [so, spoiler-ish]. Characters are not mine. Late response to the dhodges ffic challenge #5, "Hodges is married to someone in the lab and nobody knew. Key's in the tenses"... or something like that. Uhm. *shuffling feet* hey, helena_eternal, 'm sorry about not posting the fic in time. I purposely didn't ask Black for a quick beta because I didn't feel too sure about this.

Greg arrives just in time to see Warrick trying to drag Catherine away and get her to tone her voice down a notch before they're both kicked out of the hospital.

She looks upset and tired, she's been crying and is now yelling at a nurse to fuck the hell off, why won't they let them in, they're Nicky's friends.

When the nurse finally decides she's had enough and storms off, she glares at her retreating back and mutters a rather descriptive insult, and whips her head around to look at Greg and Warrick.

"Only close relatives can go in, can you believe that! We're his family here!" she grits her teeth, and stalks back to the door of Nick's room.

Greg tries to stop her, but he doesn't need to, because for some reason she freezes and is now standing there with her hand on the door knob, looking at something inside.

Catherine blinks a couple of times, and then glances back at her two friends standing a couple of feet down the hall, watching her puzzled.

She moves away from the door quietly, and neither man asks.

She wonders if they know, if they saw Hodges sitting there, inside Nick's room, and she's about to ask either of them, but words fail her.

She wonders at the implications of Hodges being in that room instead of one of them, and shakily gulps down the cup of coffee Warrick hands her.

Lots of legal papers, lots of secrets very well kept, lots of lies, lots of restraining.

She wonders if she could have done it with Warrick. Hide it like that.

And then she doesn't want to think about it anymore, because she knows it'd hurt too much, she just wants the day to be over.

Greg’s hand on her shoulder makes her start in her seat, and she looks up to find him sitting next to her.

“Let him have this moment alone with Nicky, Cath,” he says quietly.

And she suddenly realizes that where they supported each others all throughout the whole thing, David had none of that, had tried to be as professional as he could.

Catherine glances at the door and nods, shrugging Greg’s hand off. She can at least try to find out more about Nick’s medical conditions.




Someone's making a racket in the hallway.

He can hear Catherine screaming at the nurses, upset, asking why they would not let them go in.

She says a lots of things about them being Nick's family and friends and David tries to tune out her voice.

He hears the nurse telling her someone's already inside, and feels a sudden irritation at both of them when she demands to know who, and she gets her answer.

There's a surprised exclamation on the other side of the door, he hears her stalking to the door and waits silently for it to slam open, but nothing happens.

Everything goes quiet again, and he sighs.

The steps walk away, and he can hear Greg's voice, calm and firm, talking quietly to her, but can't make out the words.

He doesn't care.

David's glad he could make it, at least. He's good with people, he'll know what to do.

He just wishes they would all shut up.

He wants to hear Nick breathe, because somehow his eyes just aren't enough. He doesn't know what could be enough, really.




David doesn't cry.

It's pointless and stupid, it doesn't help either of them.

Instead, he sits stiffly in the chair by Nick's bed, watching him sleep, emotionless. The metal from the chair is cold to the touch and hard.

His eyes shift over the figure laying on the bed, and he notes absentmindedly that the bites are not as swollen as before, just a reddish shade on sickly pale skin.

He wonders why they insist on hospital rooms being so colorless, it only brings out the sickness of the patients more.

Nicky's face looks bruised, there are dark circles under his eyes. It holds none of the life, warmth he remembers from watching him sleep late at night, in their bed, side by side. It looks hollow and ghastly in the morning light filtering from the window, and Dave reaches over to turn on the bedside lamp.

They had to sedate him earlier, because he panicked when one of the nurses held his arm down to insert the needle.

The light only adds more shades, his lips are chapped, the drip by his side slow.

Dave wants to touch him, but his arms won't move.

If he moves then he will have to touch him, feel the clammy, fevered skin under his fingers, unresponsive, and that hand won't curl around his, because Nick's still slumbering and won't know what's happening, but Dave will, and he's afraid to feel that body's emptiness creep up his arm and take him over.

He can picture it rushing through him, like an electric charge, suddenly wrapping around his throat tightly, choking him.

Earlier that night, when Nick was still missing, he tried to reassure himself everything would be okay. It would be because the team was too good to fail this and they were all working so hard on it, and Nicky was strong and had kept his cool relatively well, from what they had seen in the video.

His mind refused to even acknowledge the possibility of something going wrong, couldn't wrap itself around the concept of him without Nicky. It sounded absurd. He had dismissed the thought, ignoring everything else but what was related to the case.

He didn't want to go in too deep, to think how constricting it must feel, how maddening. To know you're going to run out of air, sooner or later. To know you're buried alive and nobody can hear you, even if you scream your lungs out. To know you're completely alone.

These considerations come to him now, and he feels something like a scream bubbling inside him.

Nick suddenly sucks in a shaky breath and his eyes dart open, startling Dave out of his hysterical reverie.

He looks around, mind still fogged from the sedative, and then his eyes settle on Dave, sitting tensely on that hospital chair, his face blank and indifferent, closed to the rest of the world. His lips are pressed together so tight his jaw is probably going to cramp soon.

Nick's eyes soften, the wrinkles on his forehead smoothen a bit as he relaxes back against the pillows and tries to coax Dave out of his shell.

He can see he's scared, that he itches to lean forward and touch him and know he's there, that he's alive, but Dave is good at keeping it all bottled inside, and won't let go that easily.

Nick feels a familiar pressure behind his eyes and he blinks, trying to will the tears away.

He's alive.

And Dave's there.

They're alive, and they're still together, and he's breathing, and he's not in a box, and he's alive, he can move as much as he wants, he can breathe as much as he wants, and he can see Dave sitting on the chair there by his side, almost trembling, and he can see him finally lean in a bit and tentatively touch his hand, and he can hear him muffle a keen noise deep in his throat when Nick wraps his fingers around Dave's so tight it probably hurts.

"Hey," Nick says in a wavering voice, smiling lightly, because he know Dave won't say anything just now, he's too busy clenching his teeth together trying to keep calm.

Dave only nods and moves closer with the chair, never letting go of his hand. He tries to mutter something, but shakes his head lightly, and silence hangs over the room.

It takes a couple of minutes, both of them quiet, before Nick finally feels Dave relax, sees him loose some of his stiffness, his shoulders slumping.
Dave feels light-headed at the sound of his lover’s voice.

"It's over," he whispers to Nick and himself, and the untrusting, dead look in his eyes melts away with those two simple words, leaving them wet.
He clenches his eyes shut tight and grits his teeth, leaning in quickly to rest his forehead on their entwined hands, facing the floor.

"Dammit, Nicky, goddammit."