Making a Person
By Hearsawho
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He doesn't cry when he hits the ground. He's too busy gasping and coughing as the wind is knocked out of him, and choking when he tries to pull in a new breath and all he gets is dust and dirt instead.
By the time he can breathe again, Tess and Jim are on their knees on either side of him.
"Oh shit!" his sister blurts, her voice high and tight. "Oh shit, Nicky." Jim doesn't bother admonishing her for the language, which Nick thinks isn't very fair. When he said "damn it" a couple of weeks ago, just to try it out for size, he got his bottom smacked.
Tess cries the whole time while Jim sends one of the other ranch hands to call an ambulance, but Nick never does.
He doesn't cry on the ride to the hospital, or when the ER nurse sticks the needle in his arm, or when the doc tells him he'll be wearing a cast for the rest of the summer.
It's a couple hours before his mom gets there, and she says she's sorry about a hundred times, stroking his hair and explaining how she was in court when Jim called her. Nick doesn't cry then either, because the hospital scares him, sure, but now his mom is there, and she puts her arms around him and lets him lean against her.
"Tess said 'shit'," he tells her instead.
"Watch your mouth, Nicky," Mom chides him shakily, and Nick frowns. Not fair at all.
It's months later, and the cast is finally off, when Nick does cry. He can't help it, because his dad is frowning down at him, and Jim is standing over there with the reins to Nick's horse, and Nick swears the familiar gelding looks about twice the size he was when Nick rode him last, the day he fell.
He tries to hide it, but of course his dad sees - he sees everything - and sighs at him. Nick feels his neck heat up under his collar, and it just makes him want to cry more.
"You can't let one fall keep you out of the saddle forever," Dad says. Nick nods miserably and sniffs. "Sometimes you're going to fall," he goes on. "But you get up, and you get back on."
Nick rides Sparrow that day, and he doesn't fall. Jim ruffles his hair later, and his dad walks with his hand on Nick's head all the way back to the house.
"It's what makes a person, Pancho."
It's two years later, and two weeks after. Nick never cried that night, and he doesn't cry now, but he thinks that if Mrs. Rawlings from next door even looks at him funny, he just might.
He stands in the foyer in his pyjamas as his family gets ready to go. "I'm sorry I can't watch your play," he husks.
"That's okay," Elizabeth says. She and Mary are busy checking to make sure they have all the pieces to their costumes. "You'd probably just sleep through it like last time."
Nick feels his face heat up, and wants to protest that he only did that once, and it was three years ago, and that had been Tess' play besides. He'd never fallen asleep at one of theirs. But his throat hurts too much to bother.
Mary smiles at him, but fends him off when he tries to give her a hug. "Keep your germs to yourself, short stuff," she orders him.
Mom finishes talking with Mrs. Rawlings just as Josh pokes his head in the door and tells them to get a move on, that the cars are started. There's a moment when Nick thinks about clinging to his mom's side, or begging Josh to stay home with him, but then Mom bends down to kiss his forehead and smooth his hair, and they're all leaving and Nick's alone.
He turns, and Mrs. Rawlings is watching him with a smile.
She's not her, he tells himself. He's known Mrs. Rawlings all his life, and she's babysat him a hundred times, and she's not her.
He offers her a shaky smile.
"Why don't you come help while I make you some supper?" She holds out a hand, like he's still five.
He doesn't want to. Nick wants to go up to his room and stay there and wait for his mom to come home. Tears prickle behind his eyes, because he doesn't really want that either.
"Nicky, honey? Are you feeling all right?"
No. Nick doesn't feel all right at all. "Yes, ma'am," he says hoarsely, and he takes the few steps needed to join her. He doesn't take her hand, though. "Mary told me to keep my germs to myself," he explains, making her laugh.
Nick stays downstairs with Mrs. Rawlings all night, and falls asleep on the couch next to her as she tells him about what she's doing with her garden this year. He wakes up with a jolt when he feels hands on him, but it's Mom picking him up from his nest of blankets.
He clings to her, and Josh laughs and says something about a barnacle, and Dad is there rubbing his back. He tries to lean into that touch at the same time as clinging closer, and Dad's warm hand on his back chases the tears away. Nick shudders a relieved sigh and relaxes.
Dad moves away to walk with Mrs. Rawlings to the door, and Nick forces himself to lift up his head and let go of his mom long enough to wave goodbye and thank her. He forces himself to mean it.
He even smiles when she tells him she'd be happy to look after him if he has to stay home from school.
Because you can't let one fall keep you out of the saddle forever.
He does like Mrs. Rawlings, after all.
"Okay," he whispers, and puts his head down on Mom's shoulder.
Nick has been looking forward to this for months. He hasn't been able to stop talking about it for weeks, and Joan has threatened on more than one occasion to stuff a sock in his mouth if he doesn't shut up. "It's just football, Nicky," she huffs, "Not like you haven't ever played it before."
But Nick has never gone away to football camp before, and this isn't just another pee-wee team; this is high school.
He's been practicing like crazy at home, even when his mom laughs and reminds him that's what the camp is for. His dad understands, though, and sometimes he joins Nick in throwing the ball around, usually when Matt is grounded for not doing his chores again, and so it's just Cisco and Pancho and the pigskin.
Nick isn't exactly surprised when he joins the other quarterbacks for drills the first day, and sees that he's the smallest of the bunch. He's not small, but neither is he the size Josh was at his age; while Nick is used to that, he immediately sees from the others' expressions that they're not. Even the other freshman in the group has a good two inches on him, and he's smirking now, probably figuring he has freshman team first-string all tied up.
Nick just smiles and sticks out his hand. "Nick Stokes," he says easily. Nick knows he's good. He knows he can play. He's sure it won't take long to prove it, and they won't even notice his size.
"Shouldn't you be over with the specials?" one of the seniors laughs, and nobody takes his hand.
By the end of the day, things haven't gotten any better. It doesn't matter that Nick has kept up and done well in all the drills, out-doing the other freshman, Brian Hawkins, several times. Matt is sympathetic, because Matt and Nick have played on the same team for what seems like their whole lives and Matt knows that Nick is good. But Matt is also built like a brick house, and none of the offensive lineman give him any crap.
By the end of the week, he's laying in his bunk staring at the ceiling, struggling to recapture the enthusiasm he'd arrived at camp with. He thinks of throwing passes with Dad, and the times when Jim and the other hands joined in, and how those were always some of his favorite hours spent with his dad. This is nothing like that, though, and he swallows hard against a tight throat.
If you quit, he thinks, what're you gonna do when it's baseball season? Let 'em run you out of that too, even if you know you're better than them?
No. You get back up, and you get back on.
By the end of the season, even the JV and Varsity coaches have quit comparing him to Josh when they come to watch the freshman games. He's started more of his games than not, all without growing a single inch since camp.
"Oh Christ," Kyle warbles. "Oh God, I'm so sorry."
"I'm fine," Nick says, but the tears make a liar out of him. He grits his teeth and stares straight up, refusing to watch his partner scramble for something to soak up the blood. Kyle evidently finds something, and presses down hard on his thigh, and Nick's whole body jack-knifes with the pain.
Kyle's crying too, if the sniffing sounds are anything to go by. Hurt, and pissed off, and so goddamn heartsick, Nick squeezes his eyes shut. "Nick-"
"Don't," he coughs. "It's not your fault, okay?"
"The hell it isn't!" Kyle apologizes when his bellow makes Nick flinch and jerk his leg. He lowers his voice, but it's shaking. "Where the hell's our backup, huh? I called it in twenty minutes ago, Nick. Where the hell are they?"
He's not looking for an answer. Or at least Nick hopes he's not, because he hasn't got one, aside from the obvious. Their backup isn't coming, and never was.
They'd been warned about this, when Kyle first started making noises about coming out. All their friends had warned Kyle. But Kyle had been so tired of keeping himself a secret, and Nick hadn't wanted to believe that the guys he'd worked with for two years would really do this.
Nick has plenty of time to reflect on how wrong he was. He's on med leave for a few weeks after he gets out of the hospital. His parents insist on him staying with them and won't take no for an answer, and Anna's there to make sure he does all his physical therapy. Nick's not exactly surprised; his oldest sister has always had a thing about mothering him.
Kyle only visits once. He's pale, and he's lost weight, and Nick's never seen that look on his partner's usually sunny face before. Kyle doesn't try apologizing again, but he can't look Nick square in the eyes. When he leaves, Nick knows that Kyle won't be going back to work.
Dad's furious when the inquiry is finished and the ruling comes back that there wasn't any foul play involved. He rages, and promises to bring down the wrath of God on the department, and he spends all day on the phone talking to God knows who. Nick wonders if there will even be a department left after his dad is through with them.
It's nothing, though, compared to Mom when Nick tells them he's not quitting or transferring.
"Sometimes you're gonna fall," is all he can think to say. Dad goes silent, and doesn't talk anymore about lawsuits. Anna wraps her arms around him and makes him promise not to get hurt again. Mom doesn't say anything. She doesn't have to.
He lasts another year with the department, before he gives up his shield to work in the crime lab. His parents are thrilled, of course. Nick just wishes he could tell himself it wasn't about Kyle, and believe it.
Nick gathers the photos together and leaves the interview room not long after Grissom. He thinks it's sort of funny that this case came down to a matter of peanuts.
That's about all his efforts over the past few years have amounted to. Peanuts.
He doesn't know how he can work as hard as he does, and push himself as hard as he does, and still be kept back and told he's not ready. He doesn't know how Grissom can cut his legs out from under him and hours later casually talk about taking Greg Sanders to lunch. Nick can't figure out what the difference is between him and Greg, or him and any of the others.
He smiles, and he agrees that Greg deserves the pat on the back - because even as hurt as Nick still is, he can't begrudge his friend that little reward. But the more he thinks about it, the more it feels like a slap in the face.
When he goes to bed that morning, he hasn't made anymore sense of it. 'Silk, silk, silk' he thinks, and it makes no more sense to him now than it did then, for Grissom to hold him back based on a riddle. Based on Nick wanting to live up to Grissom's standard, as if that's some kind of sin.
He's floundering; he doesn't know how he's supposed to approach tomorrow's shift. Doing his best doesn't seem to be cutting it.
In the end, the only thing he can think to do is what he's always done.
The next day, Grissom assigns him to work with Catherine, while Warrick and Sara get their own cases. He can see the others watching him, trying to be subtle about it. Nick smiles and takes the assignment slip without hesitation.
"I'm driving," he says as he stands. He pretends not to notice their confusion. He waits them out.
Warrick and then Sara move off to get to work, and after moment's pause, Catherine relaxes. "No way. You'll make us listen to country."
Nick rolls his eyes, but laughs. "Fine, you get radio control."
Catherine leaves to get her things, and Nick is left alone with Grissom, who's still watching him and not really trying to hide it. Nick raises his eyebrows. Grissom returns the look, asking his own question.
"Take Greg to our diner," Nick says. "It'll make him feel like part of the team."
As Nick moves out the door, Grissom's hand comes to rest on his shoulder, and for a second Nick's head leans into a phantom touch as both men walk down the hallway.
After that, his mind is firmly on his and Catherine's DB.
Their worry is a weight on his shoulders he'd give anything to shrug off.
"I'm sure," he answers for what has to be the two hundredth time. He manages to muster a smile as he faces them, though he knows by now that it won't do much to reassure them.
Catherine looks so much like his mom just then, that his throat suddenly closes up and he has to blink rapidly to keep the tears at bay. If he cries, there's no way they'll let him have his way. He thinks it's supposed to be the opposite way, that when other people cry, they get what they want.
"Nick," she sighs. "Look, there's no rush. You know Warrick will let you crash with him. And you're more than welcome to stay with me. Lindsey would love to have you over."
Nick doesn't have to glance at Warrick to know that he's nodding. Instead he looks at Sara, but then he wishes he hadn't. Sara's expression is pinched and strained, and it kills Nick to think he's hurting her somehow.
They don't understand that he has to do this. If he talks about getting back in the saddle, they'll just think it's one of his Texas euphemisms.
"I know," he says, and this time the smile comes easier, because he does know. He knows he couldn't ask for better friends. He almost tells them about Kyle and Dallas, just to show them how much better off he is now because he has them, so they'll know he really will be all right, but Nick thinks that if he told them about that, it'd only make them worry more.
"So you're coming over?" Warrick presses. "Let me kick your ass on NFL2 some more?"
"Warrick…" He suppresses a sigh. "I just want to go home, man. I want to sleep in my own bed."
"Nick," Grissom tries. "Your house was still a crime scene just yesterday. It'll take time for it to be fixed up-"
Jim breezes into the break room with impeccable timing. Nick is really starting to love him for that particular quality. "Your house is all ready to go, Nicky," he says, though he doesn't look very happy about it either. "I made sure they had it done for you." He ignores the killing looks the others are all shooting at him.
Nick stands and carefully slings his courier bag over his shoulders, making sure he doesn't jostle his ribs or his wrist.
Short of cuffing him and dragging him home with them, there's really nothing they can do to stop him since his mind is made up. They're clearly uncomfortable with that, far more used to Nick being so eager to please that he'd do anything they asked.
He feels bad about that, but this is the only way he knows how to handle a fall. He knows they don't understand that, because this is the first time they've ever seen him thrown so far. Nick doesn't know how to explain it to them.
Grissom drives him home after a short but heated battle between his co-workers for the privilege. He doesn't try to argue further with Nick, or try anything sneaky like driving to his own home once he has Nick in the car, which is something Nick would not have put past Catherine or Warrick or even Sara. Instead he uses the drive to watch Nick, and Nick is so grateful not to have another fight on his hands that he's happy to let Grissom do it, even if a few hours ago being watched would've driven him nuts.
Grissom bides his time until he's parked in the driveway next to Nick's truck, and only then does he throw his curveball.
"Could I stay?"
Nick is shocked as hell, and not only because Gil Grissom is volunteering to stay over at his house, but because Grissom isn't asking if Nick wants him to stay, or if he should stay. He's asking Nick for permission. He's asking like this is something for him.
"Griss-"
"I watched hours of that footage," Grissom interrupts him, gazing at him steadily. "I'd rather not sit at home tonight reliving it."
Put any other way, Nick probably would have refused. The only way he can live with this is by taking his home back. It's why he hasn't moved. He couldn't have let Grissom play caretaker tonight.
Helping a friend, he can live with.
Nick nods at last. "Just… don't tell the others, okay? They'd all be over here with their sleeping bags."
Grissom's mouth quirks just a tad, as he kills the engine and pulls the e-brake. "CSI sleep over?"
"Yeah, and I draw the line at braiding Sara's hair."
He leaves Grissom with that mental image, and walks up the familiar path to his door. This house is still his home, he tells himself firmly. Crazy Nigel can't take that from him, and all his friends' well-meaning efforts can't stop him from picking himself up from his fall.
It doesn't stop his chest from seizing up, or his eyes tearing, though, when he walks in and sees that the rug his parents bought him is gone, apparently unsalvageable, and so is his coffee table.
Some falls are just harder than others.
He gets the shakes the morning before he's supposed to go to work, and even though he's carefully reset his sleep schedule to that of a grav-- night shift worker, he doesn't sleep at all. He knows that's bad, that he absolutely has to be in top form that night, but there's nothing he can do about it.
As it turns out, getting back in the saddle this time means coming to terms with having his very own Grissom-shaped shadow. Or maybe he's supposed to be Grissom's shadow; he hasn't figured that out yet. But Nick realizes after his first week back at work that he's not going anywhere without Grissom, whatever the case.
It's on the tip of his tongue all through that shift once he realizes, but Grissom never gives him an opening. Every time Nick looks over at him, Grissom is working calmly and competently at his side. Nick isn't able to ever catch him looking at him like he's checking up on him, and so Nick can never quite bring himself to protest having a babysitter without feeling like an idiot.
Because the thing is... when Grissom says "Nick, could you work the perimeter with me?" it sounds an awful lot like "Could I stay?" in Nick's head. So he tells himself maybe it's not about being babysat at all. Maybe this is Grissom's own way of dealing with things.
He spends the rest of that shift thinking back over the last few years, and sure enough there's a subtle, but detectable pattern of working closer with his boss after... well, after things don't go so well for him.
So Nick figures that maybe it wasn't entirely about reclaiming his home three years ago, and it's not really about coming back to work now. He's not sure exactly how Grissom fits into it, but it does seem to him that picking himself up after a fall means accepting Grissom at his side.
After it all comes together in his head, Nick stops giving Warrick a hard time about hanging around at his place watching the game when he has a new wife waiting at home. He quits protesting when Catherine badgers him into eating more by commenting on his loose jeans. He waves at Greg when they meet up at a scene so the younger man knows he's seen him. When Sara quietly, carefully pulls him aside on the boat launch, Nick nods and apologizes and doesn't fight her concern.
And he feels more like himself than he has since he waved DA Michaels away to hork up his supper in peace. It's what makes a person. It's what makes him.
"Nick? Could you pass the ALS?"
Nick smiles to himself as he reaches for the machine. "Stay as long as you like, Griss."
"What was that?"
"Nothing. Hey, I got some blond hairs here. Wasn't our vic a brunette?"
He knows this isn't the best idea. That's why he hasn't told any of the others what he's doing. As far as they know, he spends his weekends at home resting as he slowly gets used to the grueling grind again. Lucky for Nick, Warrick does have a brand new wife at home, so he can't just pop on by whenever and find out Nick's not home.
It's not the best idea for a lot of reasons. For one thing, it's a hell of a drive to make twice every weekend, even though Nick likes the time on the road. It relaxes him.
But what does he care about mileage on his truck, when he has that smile to look forward to?
"She got her official clean bill of health from Dr. Parker, yesterday," Sage greets him from the front porch.
"Yeah?" Nick grins so wide it could go from ear to ear.
Sage gives him the customary hug, which he returns without hesitating anymore. "Coffee?" she asks, like always.
"You have to ask?" he says, right on cue.
And right on cue, there's Cassie, and Nick's eyes burn for a moment when he sees the extra spring in her step. God, she's such a great kid. "Hey Cass," he says warmly, tugging gently at one pig tail as she slides her arms around his waist and leans against his side.
It's such a bad idea, doing this. He shouldn't have come back once the case was closed, and sure as hell shouldn't have started coming every weekend, but Nick thinks it's the best bad idea he's ever had.
Later that night, after one of Sage's awesome suppers that Nick's quickly becoming addicted to, Cassie goes to finish up some homework. Sage settles next to him on the porch and hands him a mug of her great coffee. "I know the Inn isn't the Bellagio, but it's still got to cost."
Nick raises his eyebrows at her over his mug, but doesn't say anything, waiting to see where she's going with this.
"Why don't you stay here, Nick?"
Oh, that's such a bad idea. That would… that would pretty much cement this whole thing as the dumbest thing he's done in years. Nick knows exactly how many years, too. He hasn't done anything like this since then. He learned his lesson then, or so he thought, and he hasn't gotten involved with a victim or a suspect or a witness outside of the case, since.
But Sage isn't Kristy, anymore than Mrs. Rawlings was a molester, or Grissom was babysitting him. And he thought he learned a lesson when Kristy died that it was the worst idea to let the people he met through cases get to him, but Sage is sitting there with such understanding in her eyes, and he thinks - Sparrow never threw me again after that first time.
"Sure," he says just as quietly and easily as she asked. He sips his coffee and curls his fingers around hers when her hand slips into his.
END