Capable of Anything

"Uh, hey, Grissom… wh-what did you want to talk to me about?"

"Sit down Nick," he motioned to the chair in front of his desk and waited until Nick had slowly sat down before he went on, "I want to talk about tonight."

"What about it?" Nick answered, hoping the safest response would be a question. He was always nervous when he had to go in Grissom's office. More often than not it was due to a mistake, or because he had done something wrong. In a way it was even worse than being sent to the principal's office, although afterwards he wouldn't have to go home and face his parent's fury.

"You judged that monk before you had definite evidence to do so."

"So did you." Nick responded quietly, but it earned him a curious look from Grissom.

He couldn't help but be surprised by the accusation the Nick had thrown out. For a moment Grissom considered correcting Nick, but curiosity got the better of him. "What do you mean?"

"You were making assumptions left and right, you were the one who was so quick to drop the monk as a suspect. Your judgement was based on what they're supposed to be. There wasn't a single piece of evidence that proved him innocent."

"Everyone's innocent until we prove them to be guilty, Nick, you know that."

Nick fixated his gaze down on his hands that were laying in his lap. It was a few moments before he shook his head. "That's bull. Everyone's a suspect until we prove they either did it or until we prove they didn't do it."

"You know, I always thought you would be the one to trust people on a case." He tried, deciding to change his tactics, and hopefully avoiding the fact that Nick had been right.

"Trust is a funny thing. Once it's broken it can never be fully restored. Kinda like a statue, all you can do is try to glue back together. Doesn't matter how good someone is supposed to be… they're still capable of anything…" He suddenly found it impossible to meet Grissom's eyes, a massive lump already forming in his throat.

"Who broke your trust?" He wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know the answer based of Nick's seemingly defeated posture. Broad shoulders were slumped, head bowed, and no trace of even the faintest of smiles was on his face.

"You don't want to know." After years of practice he found it was getting easier to keep his voice from cracking, and even easier to keep his eyes from even watering. He definitely wasn't going to break down in front of Grissom again. Once had been far too many times for him, and it wasn't something he looked forward to going through again.

"If I didn't want to know, I wouldn't have asked. You know that, Nick, which tells me that you don't want to say it."

"What's your point?" Nick shot back unable to hide the irritation creeping into his voice.

"Sometimes it helps to talk about things." Grissom offered. Somehow he always found approaching problems with Nick was harder than it was with the others. He determined that a large part of that was because Nick was almost always dependable. Nick rarely had problems, and had always been relatively easy to work with. Only when something was wrong he could be completely unpredictable.

"And sometimes it's better left alone- for everyone."

"You can't hold everything in."

"Maybe not, but just because something may be impossible doesn't mean you can't try."

"True, but it'll hurt a whole lot more if you don't have some control over it. What happens when you can't hide anymore?" That clearly hit a nerve with the other man, and he could see Nick was struggling with something. Grissom knew that whatever it was wouldn't be easy for Nick to talk about. For the usually affable man that was saying something. Although, he often found himself wondering just how much he really knew about Nick.

"Then I start over. I've already had to start over once… not exactly something I'm ready for right now."

"Will you ever be ready?" When he saw Nick's head slowly shake he went on, "In that case… it'd be easier for you to tell me now. When you have the choice."

"I used to trust everyone. I lived in Texas for crying out loud… we knew everyone that lived around us for at least a six-block radius. Didn't matter though. My parents had to go, and they didn't want to leave me home alone. My usual babysitter was out of town, so they ended up calling this lady. I guess she was a nun or something, never bothered to find out…"

"Nick-" Grissom started, hoping that the story wasn't about to go where he suspected it was heading. Except, Nick kept on talking, quietly, as if Grissom wasn't even there.

"I never saw it coming. I had just playing with some toy cars in my room- next thing I knew I was bent over on her lap and she was hitting me. Then she took… my clothes, and she p-put our dog's leash around my neck. The rest is pretty much blacked out. I remember crying, struggling to breathe… Afterwards I hid under my bed and stared at the door in the dark. Just wanted my mom to come home. When I tried to tell them she hurt me… they didn't believe me. Said she would never hurt anyone because of who she was."

"I'm sorry Nick."

"Funny how assumptions and discriminations can work both ways. No one would take a nine-year-old boy's story over an adult. Just like no one would believe a guy in college could be raped by a woman. You should've seen the look on that officer's face. She nearly killed me, and all he did about it was laugh in my face. That and tell me I was lucky that I was getting any at all. Guess it's the perfect explanation why I don't treat anyone differently. As far as that monk went... doesn't matter who he's supposed to be."

Grissom wasn't sure of how to respond. He was still struggling to take in everything Nick had just told him. It was rare for him to be caught off guard by a bombshell, and in less than five minutes Nick had dropped two bombshells right in his face. "I-I'm so- sorry. Why didn't you say anything? I… I can't even imagine how you've worked some of the cases-"

"That's exactly why I didn't tell you, Grissom." Nick answered, abruptly cutting him off. "I don't want to be treated any differently just because of what's happened to me. The first thing you did was apologize to me- you pity me. If I had told you… I never would've worked those cases- cases that I can still handle. How's that for discrimination, Grissom?"

Grissom couldn't swallow the massive lump in his throat. He wasn't entirely sure if it wasn't his own foot that had been thrust so far down. No matter what it was he just couldn't get any words to come out. To make it worse he could see deeply rooted pain in Nick's eyes, and he wanted nothing more than to help make it go away.

"I should probably get going."

"Nick, wait… a-are you going to be okay? Y-you can always come to me… tell me anything."

"Thanks, Grissom. But, I've learned how to live with it. I learned a long time ago how to live with it."

Grissom watched as Nick turned and started to leave. "Nick?" He paused and waited until Nick turned around and their eyes met before he continued. "There's still good people out there… Don't forget that."

"I never have." Nick offered his supervisor a warm, genuine smile. His eyes weren't watering quite so badly anymore. "You guys prove it to me every night. Some nights it's just harder to do than others."

Grissom returned the smile, and moved over to Nick. Before he was even aware of what he was doing he had pulled Nick into a hug, and gently patted the Texan's back.

"You taught us how."

Nick smiled. His supervisor had never once displayed the range of emotions that seemed to be running rampant right then. Grissom had definitely never hugged any of them before, at least not that Nick knew of. It was one of the many surprises he'd had since moving to Vegas.

I guess I was right. People are capable of anything.

The End

Notes: I've had this half completed for a while now, and I just finished it tonight. Just had the feeling that Grissom was being slightly hypocritical on some of the episodes, and that in some ways he was treating people differently than he'd treat a suspect who either didn't have a disability or as in this instance- a monk. Anyway, hope you enjoyed it.